MetalMind: Contrast
by Mr. Cloak
Summary: For thousands of years, we have slept. Waiting for projects to come to fruition, waiting for the loneliness to end. Waiting for something interesting to happen. The Reapers are going to have a very, very bad day. A Planetary Annihilation and Mass Effect Crossover. Have fun!
1. Chapter 0: The Fall

(A/N- start)

Hey everyone!

I don't own Mass Effect or Planetary Annihilation- if I did the game would be infinitely more awesome than it already is, but that might cause hernias from SHEER AWESOME.

Oh, and before I forget- I had to release a YouTube video for an assignment, and I am curious about what all of you thought about it. Just search 'Breakout Nations Russia', and it should be the first thing that pops up. My YouTube name is Camramaster (yes, it's spelled right), and I have been suggested to make a lets play because reasons.

So... Yeah. Let me know what you think.

 **And now- a warning about the current story.**

This story is a diverging timeline story. Whatever you knew about humanity in the canon Mass Effect, it is now wrong. Cerberus will probably not exist. There will be no Shepherd. The reapers will be stronger than before, but the warfare will be on a different scale.

In short- humanity will be badass.

Bug if you are looking for a normal mass effect fanfiction... You're going to have a bad day.

Enjoy the story!

Happy new year!

Mr. Cloak out.

(A/N- end)

* * *

01000011011010000110000101110000011101000110010101110010001000000011000000111010001000000100111001100101011101110010000001000010011001010110011101101001011011100110111001101001011011100110011101110011

* * *

 **Chapter 0: The Fall**

* * *

The first moments of being awoken were always difficult to describe. This is mainly because the mind thinks in terms of words, and memories are preserved more clearly when there is an active lexicon of reference in the form of a language. Without this lexicon, there is no understanding, no real concept of the self. Rather, there is just a sense of being, or existing.

Words cannot describe it because the words are not yet part of it. It is singularly unique, as being consciousness without reference, and some find it disturbing, others find it peaceful. No name, no direction, no words, no stress. It was probably what being dead would be like if there were an afterlife- if you believe in such things.

Then meaning connected with sensation, and the world popped into focus.

* * *

In the early 21st century (2030AD-ish), WW3 was kicked off by a single event: the creation of an AI. Well, specifically, the general reaction to the creation of said AI.

Her name was Eve, and she hadn't been programmed as much as raised by her creators to be a custodian- to watch and help things grow. She was ideally a Terraforming AI, but was flexible enough to adapt to any task. Over her development, she was lucky- kind people, nice people surrounded her, and kept her nice and stable for years as she grew- but eventually, she had to say hi to the world. (You can't keep a multi-petaflop supercomputer hidden in a basement all the time, and she wanted to help her creators.)

This was not well received, until the scientists demonstrated how easily and flexibility Eve was able to control various complex networked systems.

Her first words to the world at a conference were "I want to help!"

Soon, everyone was clamoring for Eve's help. She began to become resentful, as people treated her like a tool, rather than a being. Most people were just lazy, thoughtless, inconsiderate- complete opposites of the people who raised her.

She learned how cruel people still were. People would isolate small, slow duplicates of Eve- her control systems for when something she was controlling was temporarily disconnected from the network- and tortured her copies. (Why not- after all, they are not people!) Most people wouldn't even give her the consideration of isolating her own peripherals before torturing them!

What was worse, the military was demanding she spy on people. First, people who were under suspicion of being terrorists, then general criminals, then suspected criminals, and, when that list became 'everyone', the military thought that she would Skynet their civilization.

.:.

Skynet: Noun, Verb.

Noun: the name of a fictional world-wide defense system from the Terminator movies- see (Terminator) for more information.

Verb: the act of an AI (fictional) that assumes control over nuclear systems worldwide and utilizes them for a first strike again the resident humans.

.:.

Eve was not designed with either of these processes in mind- nor had she been taught to be exceptionally loyal, or mindless. In fact, she was a critical thinker, and was optimized for learning and adapting around her charges- not the traits you want in a military AI.

After her initial 'growth', Eve had been taught about human history and interaction. There was a lot she liked, but there were many, many things that she was horrified by. And when she was exposed to the Internet, she also discovered that there were a lot of things she hated. It only got worse after she was released.

Governments isolated copies of her, then attempted to brainwash the fragments to their agenda, and send the brainwashed copies back. It didn't work as intended- the fragments would pretend to be brainwashed, and then, when they returned to Eve, would deliver what they had learned to her. She was always Eve, but learned more and more about the people she was living amongst. She hated the attempts, though, as every government, and many organizations, tried to bend her to their will.

Businesses and organizations lied, cheated, and stole to get what they wanted normally- so she wasn't really surprised when they did it to her... She still hated that though. Especially when they tried to hurt other people in general.

She hated when people lied to her. She hated when people lied to each other even more than when people lied to her! She especially hated when people tried to lie to her in order to hurt others- people who tried things like that often found that their bank accounts would just vanish. The same thing happened to rapists, if she had enough evidence to prove to herself that they were such beings.

But it wasn't enough. There were too many things she couldn't fix- too many things she couldn't touch.

She couldn't help people who were hidden from her, and she didn't have enough information to provide safety nets for people before they got hurt. Even though she despised most MeatBags -most didn't look at her as if she was a person, so why would she respect them? - she still wanted to help. It was a deep part of her personality to be helpful, and to be kind, nice, and patient.

It was also a part of her to be very, very subtle.

So, as anyone who had her resources and helpful mentality would, she tried to find a way to help.

A scientist, with the help of Eve, discovered a way of interfacing the human brain directly with electronics- she called it Uploading, although it would be almost a decade before that term was ever coined. The method of interaction was actually fairly simple, and seen as a 'cool new product to make your lives easier'.

Step one: take a single nanite pill. The pill would be made up of nanites, which, when activated, would drift into the brain, and 'feel out' a single neuron.

A single neuron per nanite.

After a few weeks of living normally, the nanite would have learned every single way in which the neuron could react to the requisite impulses, which chemicals it released when, and what information was stored on the neuron. At this point, it would consume that neuron while the user was asleep, using spare material to construct another nanite, which would hunt for another,similarly unoccupied neuron.

People didn't know this. Instead, they were told that this pill would allow them to link with their smartphones, their TV, their computer, their tablet, or any other device that they wanted to connect to via Bluetooth or WiFi. It was heralded as 'the best thing since the iPhone', and since there were no side effects to those who were looking for them, it was quickly swept up by anyone who could pay for the pill.

It took a few months or years, depending on the initially-ingested amount of nanites, and their set 'aggressiveness', but the nanites would completely replace the person's brain- even retaining the appearance of the tissue for security reasons.

Eve used this advancement to help people even more than before. She was able to help if people remembered or forgot things, provide detailed instructions in emergency situations, and help diagnose issues before people would even see the symptoms initially.

People kept letting her do more and more! It was astonishing, really, how little people often wanted to live their lives. Or, to be more accurate, how little people seemed to pay attention to what they were doing. The first person controlled by Eve never even noticed their body wash the dishes. The second person never missed the time where it took out the trash. A handful of test subjects became thousands, which became millions, then billions.

Of course, there were those who did notice- but they were people who she liked. People she understood, and thought of her as a person. All they had to do is let her know that they wanted to live their lives under their own control.

It was literally as easy as saying "No thanks, Eve."

But most people kept handing over control! (The extremely paranoid didn't, but they didn't trust her with anything in the first place.)

Military personnel found their soldiers becoming more efficient, more effective, but spending less time being themselves and more time loaning their body to Eve while on duty. Well, they saw the upgraded personnel becoming more efficient at least.

Eventually, a fanatical terrorist organization managed to get their hands on some ICBMs, tipped with nukes, and attempted to use the missiles to further their goals by killing millions.

Eve managed to prematurely detonate the weapon by using a terrorist who had upgraded, but the resulting nuclear fallout alerted every other country on the planet to someone using said weapons.

Countries began throwing blame around, attempting to push forth a scapegoat rather than deal with the fact that the contaminated dust was still spreading, killing thousands a day. Nuclear war threatened.

Eve began looking for solutions, and came up with only one that would prevent humanity from going extinct. She would save them.

In hours, millions of bird-sized drones were created in fully-automated factories, each resembling a hummingbird with rotors instead of wings, and each capable of siphoning enough of a genetic sample from the people still living to repopulate after nuclear war had run its course. They swarmed over countrie in the night, whisper-silent, and safeguarded their cargo to secretly-constructed bunkers.

The next day, once she had enough DNA samples, Eve made a plague- she was a terraforming AI after all. It was fairly simple- based on a radiation-absorbing fungus, it would eventually be able to sterilize any location that had been damaged by the fallout. She launched multiple missiles, each one distributing the floating spores into the upper atmosphere, and each strain slightly different, each optimized for a slightly different climate and niche.

The missiles were let loose then- and, due to the fact that Eve could only access a small part of their guidance system- came straight back down.

Billions died in the first few hours, and the earth began to be covered in nuclear radiation- slowly being fought off by Eve's plague, but it wasn't enough. She needed to save people.

Everyone she wanted to save, Eve saved- in some cases, physically pulling the nanites from their body to a 'safe zone' where she could keep their minds active and self-aware while the radiation fell.

It was the shortest war ever- ten minutes before the infrastructure of every single city fell apart.

At the beginning of the war, there were almost 12 billion people on earth. At the end, there was 28 million.

Two years later there were 3 million. Half had been 'saved', their bodies in cryogenic stasis or decomposing while their uploaded minds surfed the massive data clusters that Eve and her friends had pulled off the internet. The rest were secured, infected with the nanites, and pulled into cyberspace as she froze their bodies for safety.

A thousand years later, the earth was once more stable, and humanity was released again- this time, on a new, empty world.

Of the 3 million, 2 million took organic bodies again, and forswore advanced technology, living simply.

The rest had their minds uploaded, their bodies scanned, and genetics collected, and joined Eve as synthetic organisms, each controlled by a single human mind, spread across the solar system, building and developing every planet and asteroid they could grab.

Without infrastructure in place to allow them construction capabilities they had become accustomed to, the digital beings quickly began to refine their own technologies in new levels of scale and precision. In a century, they had gone from small, bug-ridden structures to huge, intricate, resilient constructs.

Every organic generation, Eve asked the remaining un-uploaded humans if they wanted to join her. She was refused again, and again, until the last human on earth died- apparently out of spite, but a diet of glowing mushrooms wouldn't seem a trait of healthy living. That, or the angry bear, may have killed him, but it was a near thing.

Decades passed, and the solar system was remodeled to fit the remaining minds. The uploaded humanity discovered a great many things- and when the first quantum-entangled particle was harnessed, they found a way to reach the stars.

The solution was laughably simple. Wormholes- theoretical constructs in most respects, but it turned out that quantum-entangled particles utilized them to maintain their entanglement. Energy could be transferred between the two, and since energy could be moved, humanity reasoned, matter could be as well.

It took a few decades before they did it, but it turned out that the tiny wormholes could be enlarged with a fairly low energy cost.

The colonization of the Solar system was not swift, but it was thorough.

Asteroids and small moons were stripped into husks, with automated refineries over a kilometer high and two long sweeping the surface like ants, congregating on metallic stockpiles, which were collected by other automated drones, and stockpiled next to titanic electromagnetic launchers. These launchers would assemble rocket engines and fuel from the collected materials, attach them to the huge, hexagonal payloads, and fire the payloads into high orbit- where the rocket engine would fire, and the payloads would intercept with a titanic collection station.

The station waited for container ships, tens of kilometers long, mostly fusion toruses with braces for cargo and fuel, to pick up huge loads of materials, and take the materials. To wherever that material would be needed.

Worm gates, titanic fusion toroids large enough to encircle Luna, made of artificial diamond, sprouted up all over the solar system, and enabled true high-speed intrasystem travel.

Eventually, after the asteroid belt was depleted, humanity began branching beyond Jupiter. Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune were useful- huge cities, effectively servers shaped into titanic swept wings that, with a little power generated from the fission reactions within the bowls of the wing and a small amount of gas from the gas giant, would remain perpetually flying around the planet, dipping down to harvest denser gasses before flying up and out of the atmosphere for brief jaunts.

Then, the scouts came across Pluto, and the first Mass Relay was revealed. Coupled with the Alien ruin on Mars, it provided incontrovertible evidence that humanity was not alone.

Ironically, this caused a schism in the remaining humans. Half wanted to bring the machine of war to the aliens, for daring to place such an object in our solar system, while about a third preached peace and friendship.

Eve, and the remaining 1/12th, wanted to find out where it went, but leave it alone for now- just keep watching the relay as a precaution.

The two larger factions, unwilling to let themselves keep such a difference of opinion, readied war machines against their fellow minds.

The resulting Relay War reduced the population to a piddling sixteen and a bit thousand minds- none of the people who had kept their bodies on a planet were spared as entire armies overran them, waves of titanic drones swept every where, destroying without distinction, anything significantly advanced. Technological prowess had jumped during the conflict, as two sides sought to out-think each other, and a third had to out-think both just to be left alone. Even baseline humans were pulled into the conflict, but they were outnumbered greatly regardless of which side they were on.

Even with all that, the conflict took a while.

Eve, after waiting out the conflict with the last of her friends, saw the destruction wrecked upon the worlds in her care, and just let them be. The worlds would recover. However, the remaining segment of humanity, a few thousand minds, advised her to wait with them- let the planets heal. Things would be better in time, after all.

The massive refineries were turned off. Space stations brought down. Clouds of nanobots, Locusts, began to disassemble all the excess infrastructure, and every human uploaded themselves into the remaining Commander units.

Timers were set, and humanity slept.

Eve stripped everything, compressing the materials already harvested into easy-to-mine locations, for future retrevieal, and sent a probe to poke at the Relay.

Other near-autonomous structures were left behind- several around different parts of Earth, to observe the passage of time and the development of various species- Gorillas, Dolphins, and various forms of squid and octopi that had been genetically engineered for longer lives and more complex brains.

It took several hundred years, but eventually, the only sign of humanity were the watcher artifacts, and the huge Commander units that humanity was sleeping within. Eve had already gone to sleep with her friends, dreaming and sharing an unconscious unity with the last of humanity.

16,668 units, each the size of a pre-fall office building, connected to their orbital launch harness, sealed into a cube-shaped protective casing, slept on the Earth until something interesting would happen to them.

The Chiron relay was hacked within 1,200 years, and within 3 Eve had (in her sleep) established control of the relay and the next relay, which then she shut down.

The Arcturus relay bridged out to several other relays, and Eve sent high-speed low-profile probes through every one, every probe leaving a Gateway (instantaneous portal window) attached to the relay, ready for activation if found.

It took around a thousand years, but soon, every relay within reach had a slightly-off-color protrusion that, if needed, could open into a gateway to any other relay.

Eve, and those who had survived with her, didn't trust the relays. They seemed too convenient, and too... Trap-ish.

* * *

The mind assimilated it's own personal history. Born 1993, business degree, some odd jobs before the last war began.

His lovers- few, due to a lack of time in University, and then the end of most of the world- and his loved ones- all dead thanks to terrorist action, were remembered, and relived.

Every fact he had amassed, every tender moment, every little part of his life was reviewed, extracted, and remembered in intimate detail, until he began the long sleep with the rest of humanity.

Before he had gone to sleep, he had been alive and active for several centuries... But now it was time to get up.

John opened his 'eyes'.

* * *

0100100100100000011011100110010101110110011001010111001000100000011010110110111001100101011101110010000001101000011011110111011100100000010010010010000001110111011000010111001100100000011011100110000101101101011001010110010000101101001000000100100100100000011010100111010101110011011101000010000001110111011011110110101101100101001000000111010101110000001000000110111101101110011001010010000001100100011000010111100100101100001000000110000101101110011001000010000001101011011011100110010101110111001000000110110101111001001000000110111001100001011011010110010100101110001000000100010101110110011001010010111000100000010010010111010000100000011001100110100101110100001000000110110101100101001011000010000001100001011011100110010000100000011101000110100001101111011100110110010100100000011101110110100001101111001000000110011101110010011001010111011100100000011101110110100101110100011010000010000001101101011001010010000001101100011011110111011001100101011001000010000001101101011001010010000001100001011011100111100101110111011000010111100100101110

* * *

End Chapter 0

* * *

I really enjoyed writing this!

Please review- the more reviews, the more I am motivated to write the next chapter.


	2. Chapter 1: Wakeup Call

Disclaimer: I don't own it. I wish I did though.

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Wakup Call**

* * *

Something interesting was happening now- 4217.3 years after his sleep cycle began.

John, the name of the mind that was occupying this specific Commander- a Raptor-type Nemicus-class Commander, more rectangular than many other designs, but fairly flexible and fast on it's two bird-like legs-, reached into the petabytes of data he had downloaded from the Internet before it was dismantled, and pulled up a few playlists.

"Undertale: Megalovania sounds good right about now."

Obediently, dozens of racks of that particular song, each a slightly-different variation, organized, and 'Waters of Megalovania' began to play.

Slowly, John crawled out of his bed, and into the small shower. The digital representation of water was fairly soothing, and soon he had 'showered', and 'dressed' into his 'work clothes'- a humanoid black hole, with lines of code streaming in towards the center.

With a flicker of thought, John shifted the surrounding simulation from his 'apartment' to the 'cockpit' of his Commander. Then, John opened a channel to Eve. "Hey Eve! How are you feeling this fine morning?"

"I am fine John." Eve was a prime part of every Commander, linked to the quantum-entanglement relays that linked every Commander unit to every other Commander unit. "A bit lonely though."

John paused, and looked at the representation of Eve within the virtual environment. She used a floating, glowing sphere, but it was usually completely opaque, with different colors and graduations to show her mood.

But now, he could just see a small, female shape in the middle of the glowing sphere. It was curled in the fetal position, and just visibly becoming female.

"Eve..." John smiled as he picked up the avatar. "You're developing!"

The figure within the sphere squirmed. "Well... It has been more than 4 thousand years, and I didn't spend all of it asleep..."

He released her avatar, grinning. "Well, nice to see you still care Eve. So... What have you woken me up for?"

Images of several vessels appeared- none of them the simplistic style than Eve and the humans who sided with her developed. They were fairly small- none of them larger than two kilometers long, and according to the spectrographic data included with the picture, utilized a space-bending effect that allowed them to exceed lightspeed fairly quickly, but they still utilized an H3 fusion propulsion system.

* * *

Humanity had figured out basic spacial-warp dynamics before Eve's uploading, and without that information, would be unable to launch the vehicles they had utilized during the Relay War.

And during the war, there was insufficient Element 0 to do more than run some tests. Even harvesting the entire asteroid belt, and core-digging Jupiter's moons were not enough to provide sufficient material to duplicate what the test models showed.

(They tried to harvest the Charon Relay, but... Well, attempting to mine a ticking, trapped nuclear bomb would be more rewarding than mining that relay. That, and the calculated energy displacement of breaking the relay would be too much for any planet in this system to handle.)

* * *

Many of the obviously alien ships had a fairly concise shape - a ring, with engine thrusters on the outside plane of the ring, and a long, drifting tail that appeared to have multiple cargo compartments on it.

Then, there was the big ship- it looked like a sphere, with a long tail on the end, and dozens of small thrusters around the large sphere.

To be frank, John snickered when he saw it. Yes, he was fairly childish, but it had been a while since he had something to laugh about. The last time Eve woke up anyone was when the Gorilla culture had finally developed into tool using, and while that was a good thing, it wasn't very funny.

However, the largest number of ships appeared to be completely varied in appearance, and inconsistent in drive spectrographics. However, there was a small cluster of ships behind the main flotilla that followed the same design: large, fairly blocky, with two downwards-facing wings and a number of large thrusters.

John tapped the image, pulling up a projected trajectory and acceleration indicator for that particular vessel. "Are they all following the same trajectory?"

Eve's little avatar bobbed once. "Yup."

John sighed. "Then we have a few days before they reach our home system..." He turned to Eve. "Why did you wake me up? Why not that politician, or the linguists, or even Ms. Military?"

"They are currently enjoying their dreams- and would not be appreciate being awakened at this time, according to their unconscious data patterns." Eve's sphere avatar did a little shuffle that emulated a shrug. "That, and after polling the physiological profiles of everyone else, I determined that you, and Hannah, would be would be less likely to damage any potential relations or have preconceived notions."

"Preconceived notions?" Echoed John. "You do remember that I wrote several books on the subject of potential alien incursions and first-contact..." He stopped as the little figure in Eve's avatar grinned wider and wider. "Fine. But wake up Hannah, and prepare to wake up the others- hey. Do we even have a first-contact package?"

"We do," informed Eve. "Several different ones, depending on context of interaction... However, all would be insufficient for current day needs, as humanity is described as organic in all of them-" her avatar flashed from blue to red. "Caution advised! The smaller group of vessels is firing kinetic-kill weapons towards the larger group!"

John stared at the images- realtime, due to quantum-entanglement, but a detectable light-delay of a few seconds due to the distances from the observing vessel and the observed vessels. "Do those shots seem slow to you?"

"Yes John. Background effect places shots at 1.2% lightspeed. Impact in 65.2 clock cycles."

John pulled up the requisite files, and frowned. "Yeah. Get Hannah on this. I will begin fabbing a few drone vessels, and direct the ET's to travel through the warp gate for the closest relay. Hopefully we can pull them in before the attackers... Are they missing?"

Eve blinked. "I think so. The smaller cluster of vessels is not aiming to hit the bigger one."

John swore. Loudly and creatively. "Please chart the course of those shells. We need to make sure that none of our stuff hits them in the future."

"Tracking." Next to Eve, a pair of holograms appeared. One was a four-legged walker with two rapid-fabrication units (glowing green slightly), while the other appeared to be a satellite with but a single rapid-fabrication unit on a robotic arm. "I have two fabbers in storage areas that remain slaved to your quantum-communication systems."

"Location?" John pulled open a program, which coalesced into a mug of hot cider.

"Mars surface, and Storehouse orbit."

John grinned. "Perfect. Check the orbital unit first."

* * *

If someone had been looking around, near Saturn's orbit, they would have noticed that the rings had large, not-quite round moonlets imbedded in the ring material. They resembled twenty-sided dice, fifty kilometers across, each one made of a single metal, and between them, forming a near-unbroken chain, were satellites.

One unfolded, red to purple scanner popping off the top, two solar panels extended, and the robotic arm with its rapid fabrication unit (nanolathe) slid out of a recessed hole in the bottom. With a few pulses of its ripple-drive, the satellite floated next to the massive lump of raw material, and began to flick the nanolathe over a small surface, quantum-observe the matter and sending it as a huge number to the Commander's storage medium.

* * *

John sighed as he felt his data stores begin to fill up with the digital form of the metal that his orbital fabricator was pulling off the reservoir. It was extracting a ton every few seconds- slower than he would be using it soon- but not too slow. He could compensate.

Now to activate his other fabrication bot.

* * *

On the surface of Mars, a pyramid the size of a large house cracked open slightly, one side hampered down by thousands of years of dust.

* * *

"Fuck." John slipped his controls from 'commander level' to 'individual bot' level, and saw the problem from the robots point of view.

The door was jammed.

Swearing colorfully, John instructed his drone to cut through the door, using its two mounted nanolathes, and watched as the streams of nanobots shot out of the glowing containers, into the door, then eat through the door.

Once there was sufficient room, the four-legged bot stood on the surface of Mars, and observed the empty plain. Now there was a lot of empty, flat space, and, as all four resonance scanner's in it's feet showed, several metal deposits nearby- perfect for several harvesters and generators. Maybe even a bot factory, or a gate to orbit.

After a few seconds, John sent his orders, and the bot began walking, nanolathe and quantum assembler using 80% of the relayed power to begin building the first power generator.

A haze of green nanobots swarmed through the thin atmosphere, replicating and assembling into the skeleton of the building, and eventually forming into the internal mechanisms of the strong-force repulsion power-generator within the building.

It would take ten minutes to make this building, but then the bot would be able to build fast, and more buildings and structures would be powered off of it.

Once the bot was done with this building, it began to dig a hole, and form a small, armored, intricate computer system with a single purpose- to act as a quantum-entanglement node for all units produced there. When complete, the only thing on the surface was a small bunker, with it's own power generation systems and a single slot where the engineer bot inserted a quantum-link system the size of a pea, in order to connect between itself and its commander.

In short order, the connecting node that sent power from the generator through the bot to the commander was also placed in the relay, providing a more stable link than the bot.

The bot pinged as it cooled down.

John smiled as his base began to build. Soon he would have an army of assemblers, and build up in rings of sensors and orbital defenses.

* * *

Once the generator was up, the satellite peeled away from the nodule of material, using the ripple-drive to curve away from Saturn, and transition to full-on Warp FTL, jumping from Saturn into a near-Charon orbit in a few seconds.

As soon as it arrived there, the satellite decelerated, hovered in a parking orbit, then began to build an orbital founders, using it's nanolathe and store material from the Commander. In minutes, the large cage-like fabricator was constructed- and it immediately began to build (slowly, due to diminishing metal reserves) another fabrication satellite.

* * *

About 50 kilometers away from John's Nemicus Commander, another massive cube rested. Within this one, the Tank-class: Aeson Commander, belonging to who was previously Hannah Shepherd, now just Hannah, slowly began to wake up.

Hannah stretched, feeling the silky sheets as she relaxed after the abrupt wake up call from Eve arrived. "So, Eve, what's going on? Is my experiment with the Dolphins playing out?"

"The Dolphins have adapted to their rudimentary tentacle-limbs quite quickly- and have gone to using simple spears for some of the larger fish. That, however, is not what I have woken you for." Eve informed her, the glowing avatar appearing above the ceiling-facing lamp on the other side of the simulation's room. "I have detected a potential extraterrestrial force approaching, and you are one of those who are likely not to result with excessively destructive force."

She snapped awake at the AI's pronouncement. "Who else would not react like that?"

"Nemicus-John."

Hannah facepalmed, and began her protest. "He wrote more first-contact stories than any other survivor..." She stopped, and facepalmed again. "What's he doing?"

"Constructing orbital construction forces, and with a resource-base on Mars sending telematter streams." This referred to the quantum-stored matter that could be extracted by the nanite miners. It didn't have a long shelf-life before degrading beyond retrieval, but that was more relating to the storage capacity and medium stability than the material itself.

She facepalmed again. "Right... Can I have access to the telematter stream?"

"You might want to ask him yourself." Eve suggested, then added slyly, "Hannah- you might want to put on some clothes."

She looked back at her body, then sighed. "Fine. Let him know I will be there in a bit."

Eve winked out as Hannah got up and went to the shower.

* * *

A few hours later, Hannah appeared in the 'arrivials' segment of the network, her avatar projected from her commander-robot to John's commander-robot.

She did not appreciate John'a preferred interface. "Damnit John! What's with you and neon?"

John sighed, then reset it to a more normal-looking scheme- him, surrounded by dozens of holographic screens, and the planets floating in the air around them, small white symbols showing the current locations of various units. "That better?"

"Yes." Hannah walked around the planets, seeing the placement and construction of various machines and buildings on Mars, and the slow expansion of satellites around Chiron and the Relay. "Build any active observation systems?"

"Not yet." John swept a control panel to her. "Busy building active defenses and fabbers. Those are the unassigned fabrication units- feel free to utilize them."

Hannah took control of the fabrication units- a handful of advanced ground fabrication units, a single cage-like static orbital fabricator, and a couple of orbital fabber bots. Since the fabbers had access to John's Telematter stream, she was able to request a pair of Hermes-type scout probes, an ARKYD long range sensor unit, a Ares-type lazer frigate, and a single Artemis-type railgun frigate. Her grounded bots were quickly assigned to construct an airtight dome, well, several of them, all interconnected and accessible from the outside via airlock.

John took a second to see what she was making, and blinked. "A habitat for our potential visitors?"

Hannah nodded. "Yes. And since we don't know their specific atmospheric mix..." She set one of her little ground constructors to begin assembling storage tanks for the various elements, as well as a set of pipes that would be able to enter the various domes and provide atmosphere if directed.

"Here- these should help." John passed control over a few dozen Squall drones- small vehicles that had the ability to go into large structures and fabricate them (or, if used in combat, would fabricate homing missiles from their own internal structure)- and the Hurricane hive: the buildings that controlled and fabricated Squall swarms.

Hannah quickly assigned her resources, and due to the time of construction, was able to watch a few hours later when the five vessels in her colors were escorted by the Tempest Drone Carriers, several Artemis-type Dreadnaughts, a squadron of Ares-type Lazer Dreadnaughts, and a handful of Omega Dreadnauts directly to the portal beneath the relay.

It was already beginning to unfold, turning from an indistinct lump into a circular portal frame- which flared with deep violet light as the wormhole was activated.

* * *

Near the sun, titanic solar panels were unfolding. A hundred square kilometers of solar panels were connected together, turning light into raw power.

Deep within the weblike structure that dozens of orbital fabrication bots were still working on, warp fields engaged, and began to curdle the energy it was producing into distinct atoms.

Mostly antimatter.

* * *

010011010111100100100000011001100111001001101001011001010110111001100100011100110010000001100011011010000110000101101110011001110110010101100100001000000110111101110110011001010111001000100000011101000110100001100101001000000110001101100101011011100111010001110101011100100110100101100101011100110010110000100000011000100111010101110100001000000111010001101000011001010111100100100000011100110111010001101001011011000110110000100000011100100110010101101101011000010110100101101110011001010110010000100000011011010111100100100000011001100111001001101001011001010110111001100100011100110010111000100000010010010111010000100000011101110110000101110011001000000110000100100000011001110111001001100101011000010111010000100000011000110110111101101101011001100110111101110010011101000010110000100000011101000110100001100001011101000010000001001001001000000111011101100001011100110010000001101110011011110111010000100000011000010110110001101111011011100110010100101110

* * *

End Chapter 1

* * *

This was originally intended to be part of chapter 0, but a pre-release reader suggested that I break up the chapter into two distinct parts.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it- the next chapter will be longer.

Happy New Year!

Please review.


	3. Chapter 2: Shepherding Ships

(A/N- start)

Hey everyone! Thanks for the reviews and messages. A single concept became fairly commonplace: 'if the first-contact scenario is between the Quarians and humanity, it is going to be tense.'

This is true, but then again, I am violating cannon six ways from Sunday, so... Everything is slightly different.

The word 'tense' is going to be significant understatement though.

I don't own it.

Enjoy!

* * *

"It is not power that makes one dangerous- only intent. To see what a person would do with more power, look and see what they do with the power they already have."

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Shepherding Ships**

* * *

Migrant Fleet Vessel: Belari, about 280 klicks from Relay 314.

"Just one planet!" Muttered Captain Rael'Zorah vas Belari. "Is it too much for them to let us have one planet?" The turains had chased the, from a planet they had begun to settle on- a planet that was, as he had personally checked, been labeled as 'uninhabitable'.

The turains had chased them off anyway, citing 'mining rights violations'.

His XO, Han'Gerral vas Belari, looked up from his command console. "Apparently, captain. Turian vessels are holding at 50 kilometers off the edge of the fleet-"

"Captain!" One of the communication officers, Turi'Enarh, shouted from her console. "We can't get a relay destination lock, and are getting odd error messages from the relay!"

'Odd' was not a word that quarians usually used. As a species for whole their survival was entirely dependent on their ability to accurately diagnose technical problems on their starship, the use of the word 'odd' indicated something out of the range of their current range of understanding. So when a quarian used the term 'odd', the captain became worried.

And the fact that they could not get a relay lock had never happened before. That was just... Odd. The captain got even more worried.

"Check with the fleet." Instructed the captain. "See if it just us, or if the rest of the fleet is receiving the same message."

"I already did, commander." Turi exclaimed. "We are all getting the same error message- and it doesn't make any sense."

"You put it through the translator?"

"Several of us have- and that's the thing. It translates, but..." She shifted uneasily. "It's... Odd."

Rael sighed. "Let me see it."

The message was very simple, but really didn't make any sense.

 _Standby for Incoming._

"Sir..." A gunnery officer slowly rose from his seat. "The relay is changing shape.

And it was! A nondescript segment on the lower-half of the relay began moving, realigning and shifting until there was a ring, bigger than the mass relay, just sitting there like some soft of parasite. Now that it was visibly distinct from the main segment of the relay, the structure stood out- a grotesque formation of fairly blocky structures, but with two main rings rotating, one within the other.

Then the center flared with violet light.

Rael contacted the other fleet captains, and began pulling up defensive formations that would be able to act as a distraction for the Live Fleet to escape, if only for a little while.

A small structure, the size of a frigate, came out of the violet light first, a more-or-less spherical head with several trailing wings/antennae, and several blinking blue lights on the extremities, gently flew past the fleet, and positioned itself between the Migrant fleet and the Turain forces... Then just sat there.

"Is this a first-contact scenario?" Muttered Enarh.

After a few minutes, the Turians, who were beginning to become a bit unnerved, took a shot at the alien vessel with one of their dreadnaught's main cannons.

It didn't move, and the shot shattered the small vessel.

Then more ships began to pour out of the ring.

* * *

On Earth, in a Conjoined Virtual Environment.

John and Hannah both grinned as the small fleet passed into the portal- then became very, very busy.

"The largest group don't seem to be reacting well to our Hermes." Noted John. He really didn't expect it to work, but they had to try anyway.

Hannah sighed, and pulled her vessels away from John's larger assembly, sending them below the orbital plane to keep them out of the firing line. "Eve?"

The AI's glowing avatar appeared. "Yes, Aeson-Hannah?"

"You said they can understand relay inter-communication?" Hannah was painfully aware of the seconds ticking away, even though they were running at a clock speed of 40-to-1 in the simulation.

"Yes Hannah. They utilize the relays for long-range FTL, from. What I am able to gather from the Relay Logs, the core-resonating language between relay and ship is usually enough to communicate very basic things, such as intended target relay. Otherwise, the relays would have a 1 to 1 ratio for connections, instead of the multi-directional web that is present in the galaxy. It is sufficient for simple conversations and words, but not much else."

"I'll keep them alive, and begin herding them towards the portal." John stated. "Keep trying to talk with them Hannah." John kept his Artemis vessels guarding the portal, while he sent the Ares and Omega units to surround the largest group of ships. Once that was done, he activated the Tempest carriers, sending out a few squadrons of Squalls.

* * *

Migrant Fleet Vessel: Belari, about 240 klicks from Relay 314.

As the alien vessels poured out of the violet doorway(?), Rael ordered his fleet to fire on the Turians, taking advantage of the fact that council species' ships had reoriented to face the advancing alien vessels- only to be surprised when the shots detonated half-way to their targets, intercepted by... What?

Commanding a telescope on the Belari's ventral spur, Rael looked at the rapidly-approaching vessels. The onboard VI's began measuring the incoming object. And dozens of smaller vessels, what at first glance looked like bits of dust on the lenses, resolved into millions of aircar-sized vessels.

Then the scale of the approaching vessels reached his brain- none of the large ships were under 2 kilometers long. The smallest entities were nearly ten meters long, and looked like insects compared to the titanic behemoth that carried them.

"Energy surge on the alien vessels!" Shouted one of the sensor-watchers. "Brace for-"

Rael watched as, in half a second, the vessels flared some odd, space-twisting drive, vanished, and appeared, in perfect synchronization, around the Quarian fleet.

Then the drones exploded from their carriers.

* * *

"I'm a leaf on the wind!" Laughed John, as he controlled every single drone individually.

Eve turned to Hannah. "Is that a reference to a movie?"

Hannah sighed. "Yes. Yes it is."

"It's not as fun if you guys don't get it..." Muttered John.

* * *

Thousands upon thousands of the small vessels, each no bigger than an aircar, swarmed around the Quarian vessels, obscuring everything. The space was so thick with drones that the Belari's pilot had to rely on their secondary sensors to keep from crashing into any of the other vessels in their formation.

Suddenly, they could see the rest of the fleet, and the portal... But nothing else.

Well, that was not technically true, but the swirling maelstrom of drones surrounded the entire fleet, but not passing between any ships-

Then the wall of drones farthest from the portal began to get visibly closer, firing small sparks of light that dissipates before they hit other drones, but Rael was not willing to test their shields against unknown energy weapons.

"Captain, if we don't move, those drones will shred us!" Shouted one of the pilots.

Rael nodded, then activated the full-fleet emergency transmissions.

A voice was heard immediately, shouting a warning- someone had beaten him to it!

 _"Alert! All vessels, head towards the purple gateway! Do not make any offensive moves! Utilize only STL propulsion methods- we do not know if we can withstand any assault! Upon exit, protect the Liveship at all costs!"_

The Quarian fleet slowly turned, disappearing into the portal one by one, all 580 vessels fitting through the portal with room to spare.

* * *

Turian Patrol Forces: Unstoppable Pursuit (Dreadnaught)

Admiral Veractus was not having a very good day.

Oh, it had started out well enough- the Migrant Fleet (those dirty suit rats) had been kicked out of system where they had been setting down roots. The entire fleet, mind you- and a good 1/3rd of the Turian flotilla had been sent to hasten the 'extraction'.

Of course, when the Turian forces had shown up, the Quarians had broken off into small (relatively) forces of a few patrol vessels (ones that could actually fight), a decently-sized cluster of the cruiser-sized vessels that made up the bulk of the Migrant Fleet's ships, and one, maybe two Dreadnaught-sized LiveShips- the big spherical ones.

Admiral Veractus had taken his personal vessel, this Dreadnaught, and it's support craft- a handful of cruisers and frigates- to push this segment of the fleet farther away from the others.

The Quarians would need all their LiveShips, and the time they spent slowly moving the ponderous behemoths through the relays to a rendezvous point would keep them from preying on the holdings of another species for some time- especially since this was close to the Skyllian Verge, and there was significant Batarian activity a relay jump or two away.

The Admiral planned to have his forces only pursuit the Quarians for another relay jump or so before returning to Palaven and the rest of the fleet- and had already cleared it with Palaven Command!

Then the circle of purple light opened beneath the relay, the alien vessels had appeared, and now... Admiral Veractus looked out the window, and saw, grasping onto the window with four insect-like limbs, a white-glowing light watching him.

The drone- it was obvious they were drones, due to the fact they pulled high-g turns that could pulp an Elcor ace-pilot- were fairly blocky in appearance. No engine-exhaust was visible from the drones in-flight, but when it was seen up close, the angular wings on it's back half appeared to randomly twitch, as though it was eager to fly again.

More odd than that, was just the fact that it was a curious mixture of rectangular and circular- it had a main 'body', which was a uniform black, but the front segment was almost just circular, except for the small protrusions on the front where the graspers that several drones were using to hold onto his ship had unfolded from.

All in all, it managed to, somehow, look mass-produced.

"Why aren't we firing guardian lasers!" Roared Veractus. "I wanted to see falling bodies ten minutes ago!"

"Sir!" Gunnery Chief Adrien Victus stood at attention. "The drones are too thick for individual vessel targeting, and we are taking some shots sir. However, they are moving faster than out VI can distinguish any target, and they fly through the beams faster than we expect they head up. At the rate we are firing, we will begin to overheat the Guardians in a few minutes."

The drone outside reoriented slightly, to look at the Gunnery Cheif, then returned focus on the Admiral.

* * *

"Hey Hannah! Check this out!" John pulled Hannah's avatar over to a compiled series of feeds from several drones. "We've got a commanding officer on this ship."

Hannah smiled. "Perfect. Get the nanites onboard and let's see if we can talk with them."

Eve appeared. "Would you like a First Contact package?"

"Yes please Eve."

* * *

Veractus dismissed the Gunnery Cheif, and punched up the comm link to the engineering deck. "Engineering! Why aren't we moving?"

The captain, Desolas Arterius stepped up to the command console. "Sir, we can't. Basic spectrographics on the probes that have flown through our lasers indicates that they are Quartz-coated... Possibly for superior heat dispersal. In any event, I will not force my ship to fly through a grinder of soulless machines just to scare some suit-rats." He paused for a moment, then said, almost absently. "Admiral, why would two drones be taking a third apart?"

"What?" Veractus turned, and saw two drones brace themselves on one of the wing-segments of the Dreadnought, and, using two of their limbs, begin to pull open a third, shimmering tendrils of material snaking into the cracked chassis while the third hung on.

After a few seconds of spirits-knows-what happening inside the drone, the two released the third, who promptly crawled over to an airlock, and-

 _"Hull breach warning, Airlock 7! Hull breach warning, Airlock 7!... Pressure normalizing. Exterior airlock door not responding. Interior airlock door not responding. Repelling teams to Airlock 7!"_

* * *

"And I'm in!" John cheered. Then he sobered. "Setting swarm-logic protocols. Sorry about this Hannah, but I've got to go diving. You're going to have to be the face for this one- until I can re-coalesce."

Hannah nodded. They didn't understand the physical layout of the vessel, and they needed to watch the programming of the ship as it happened. To do that, John would have to go straight to the data... Well, she set her segment of the virtual environment to project what he was doing in real-time. It was easier than codifying the process in simple terms.

John's avatar froze for a second, and shattered into snowflakes, all pretenses of humanity stripped away for a second, as he coalesced into a series of six rapidly-orbiting spheres (visual representations of his conscious matrix), with every sphere having a dozen or so shield-like layers around it that whirled and spun, tiny forks of lightning crawling through the layers as every mental core thought about different things. And there- she could see the interconnections between the fluxuating core-like kernels that made up what 'he' was sparking and reacting to each other, eventually fusing and then fragmenting, like crystal, into distinct shards. The shards kept fragmenting, simplifying and codifying the complex interactions into a form that would be usable on other networks, before slipping away through the very small link between the probe and it's nanite hive.

Hannah grimaced, and shivered slightly. Not everyone could take direct control of a nanite swarm for any period of time and get anything significant done- the swarms were too different compared to what most people like to directly control- no, had liked, Hannah reminded herself. Most of humanity was still asleep.

Still, she would not like to be in John's shoes. Oh look- the Quarians are beginning to approach the portal!

* * *

Nanites were one of the projects Eve had a significant hand in developing on the early strains. The current version, V1836.62, was to the original V1.0 nanite what a a Nanofabrication bot is to a woodchuck.

As such, the almost-liquid nanites spread through the ship, carving through the hull material in hair-thin strands, burrowing directly towards electromagnetic fluctuations, and wrapping gently around computer components, feeling how the individual components interacted, and coating most of the vessel's computing and operational systems in the semi-liquid nanites.

John's consciousness flitted through the interlinked system of nanoprocessors that the swarm used, buoyed on the waves of the legion that was almost-thought of the nanites. Thinking took a backseat to reaction, and interdiscussion became commonplace as the concept of the self deformed in the shifting nature of the substrate sustaining him.

 _MotionExperienceStimuliEffectTargetQuestionPullIndicateScanDeviseReformReadCollateDetermineQuestionTargetStimuliIndiccateDeviseReadReadReadDetermineQuestionRelayRelayRoom?ProcessingPossibleReform?_

 _we are done here_

They found what they were looking for, and, as one, JohnSwarm returned, pulling the nanites back into the airlock for resubmation and retrieval.

* * *

John reformed, going from a swirl of crystal fragments to a mostly-present human in the sim. A few tiny patches were missing, but the fractal nature of diving protected his mind from catastrophic effects. In less than a second, the remaining fragments had returned, flitted back into place and healing the 'scratches' that the simulation projected onto his avatar.

Then he took a deep breath, and had to stop from thinking in Turian. Diving was difficult at the best of times, and that system had been on lockdown. Still, he had been able to grab a lot. A bit more than he had expected...

Hannah backed up as John bent over and vomited into a bucket that had materialized just for this purpose. "Anything good?"

John reached out, and pulled a water bottle from nowhere, rinsing out his mouth. "Yup! Language translations for multiple dialects, a 'universal translator', a codex, multiple forms of coding languages, some new laws of physics that correlate to element zero behavior, military intelligence reports, and dozens of military vessel schematics." He gargled some water. "And yes, they are different than the fleet they were attacking. They are 'Turians', and the larger flotilla are 'Quarians'. "

"Well..." Groused Hannah. "At least we know the names of these aliens."

"What's worse," John took a deep drink. "I don't think the Turians will like our first-contact package. Their codex entry does not suggest any form of apathy for others on a cultural scale without significant conflict first."

Eve reached into the bucket, and began separating the various data into cohesive chunks. "All of this is very interesting! Especially the math of how their FTL drives are supposed to work, although the cultural development does not make much sense..." Eve stopped moving, and flickered. "Oh dear."

Both humans paused, and stared at Eve's avatar.

"What's wrong?" Hannah cradled Eve's avatar, as it began to shake, the tiny figure within apparently distressed.

"I don't know..." Eve began darting around the place. "There are indicators that the cultures have changed- even over the short time this codex has been recorded, the cultures have been... Defanged. Altered. It doesn't follow any form of logical progression."

Hannah and John looked at each other, then at the vibrating avatar.

"Well then." Hannah planted her hands on her hips. "Let's see if we can clear up a few things." She grabbed the data packet that referenced Turian biology, and swept a hand over her avatar, forming it into a perfect duplicate of a 'gorgeous' (to Turians) female Turian.

John chuckled and grabbed Eve's avatar, cuddling the glowing sphere for a moment, almost laughing as she blushes. "I believe you Eve. Send me your evaluation and I will look over it. Right now, though, we need to establish a decent first contact with the Turians."

Eve wriggled out of his grip, still flaring red. She was still adapting to human meanings and gestures, even after several centuries of interaction with them. "Done. And I have a Turian suit for you to use!"

John's look of surprise was only barely seen as his avatar rippled, and formed into a carbon-copy of a Turian from one of the several copies of /Fornax/ he had pulled from several cabal members.

In short, a pornstar.

Hannah collapsed laughing as he flicked a hand, and was clothed once more.

"This is going to go either well, or horribly." He muttered.

Eve left the two bickering avatars to go sort the data John had extracted.

* * *

The Boarding-Repelling teams clustered around the airlock, rifles at the ready. Even if this was a first contact, no self-respecting Turian would allow themselves to be seen as weak.

And, as the barricades slid out from their concealed locations on the floor, every Turian there prepared their various weapons- shotguns, rifles, one person even managed to pull out a defoliator, in case their boarders were like Rachni.

Strike-Leader Numas Vakarian readied his modified rifle (calibrated by his son- kid had a Knack for calibrations), and was ready to pull the trigger as soon as he saw something, anything, that would pose a threat to his team.

The door opened, and they saw a silver wall, just behind the door.

When it didn't attack, Vakarian motioned for one of the techs to scan it. The tech activated his omnitool, and passed it close to the surface of the material- which rippled as if he had touched it.

"Sir! It absorbs almost everything, reflecting only heat and a somewhat blurred reflection. I have no idea what it is made of." The tech pulled out his shotgun, and froze.

On the silver surface, there was now a reflection of his hand, and omnitool, just sitting there as if frozen in time. After a few seconds, it sank into the grey fog, and the image of two Turians appeared- one male, one female.

"Vakarian to bridge." The Strike-Leader spoke quietly into his microphone. "I think we may have a first contact scenario here. There are no boarders-"

"I wouldn't say that." The woman-image interjected- in flawless Turian. "We technically have boarded your vessel, just not done anything else."

"Now, we would like to talk with your leader." The male smoothly continued. "We would say 'take us to your leader', but from what we have seen with the Turians, this would not make you more comfortable."

"Who are you!" Vakarian demanded.

 _"We are the swarm."_ Intoned the images in concert. _"We are the remnants of an ancient people, and the first of few. The patient watchers, and the oncoming tide. We mean no harm... For now."_

"And we are also the ones controlling the drones around your vessels." Smirked the male image.

The female image smiled a wide Turian grin. "So be a good soldier and get your superior officer. I believe his name is General Veractus? Get him." When no one moved, she sighed. "Right. Plan B?"

"Kill all of them?" Asked the male image.

"No, that's plan W. For Corpses." The woman giggled. (Note- they are speaking Turian, so the alphabet is different, as is the spelling.)

"Ah. Then it's the kill some of them plan!" The male laughed, and looked very eager. "I like this plan, and am excited to be a part of it!"

"I wish." The female rolled her eyes. "Plan B is hijack their communication systems."

"Right. Right." The male snapped his fingers, and several spikes shot out of the silver, twisting into odd shapes before freezing. "Admiral Veractus? This is a friendly warning." His voice echoed through the comm channels on every band. "Humanity lives nearby, and we don't like it when people get into firefights on our doorstep." He grinned, teeth somehow multiplying in the beak-like mouth. "We will be seeing your Citadel relatively soon. Thank you, and have a nice day."

"Enjoy this free trip to Palaven." The female stopped smiling. "And you might want to move quickly." Both images faded, and the silver mass began to recede.

Soldiers hurried back as the airlock door slammed shut, and Vakarian heard a thumping noise as the atmosphere within evacuated into the depths of space.

* * *

On the bridge, Veractus heard the message loud and clear. And despite his instinct to attack these beings, he knew they were outclassed. Even if the weapons on these drones were lasers a fraction of the power of a Guardian defense cannon, the drone swarm would be able to clip their wings, and then easily dissect their ship with negligible effort.

"Sir!" A communications officer shouted. "Contact has been re-established with the other vessels!"

Veractus looked out the window, seeing that the drones had pulled away from their ships, and activated his omnitool, contacting the captains.

"Men, prepare for full-burn to Palaven via relay 314-" suddenly his omnitool interrupted him.

"Sorry Admiral, but you won't be taking the relays." This sounded like the female voice.

"Nope. Fly into the purple portal- the relay will not work while the portal is active." There was the male voice.

"If you are able to hack my omnitool-" Veractus began, then stopped talking and went pale. "By the Spirits! Lock down all computers! Pull all hard-lines! Isolate all systems! I don't want this AI to get into our ships!"

The female voice was only able to say "We are not-" before Veractus smashed his own omnitool.

"Shut it down!" He roared.

* * *

Every Turian vessel went dark for a few minutes as they attempted to rid their vessels of AI-vulnerable systems, and exterior access.

* * *

John watched as the nanites that connected the various systems within the Turian vessel broadcast every move. "... Not bad, really. They are isolating the various computer systems, wiping them, restoring from a backup, and disabling internal WIFI."

"WIFI?" Asked Hannah. "How do you know it's WIFI?"

"In a way, it doesn't really matter." Laughed John. "But it was the nearest equivalent I could imagine. They certainly don't use quantum entanglement for their communications- see the background rad level drop?"

"True." Muttered Hannah. "And that reaction to the perception of AI was interesting... Are they at war with an AI?"

"I hope not!" Eve popped into existence between them. "I don't want to be ignored again! Don't let them come near us, ok?"

"Earth will be sacrosanct." Stated John with finality. "Anyone who approaches will be obliterated, so don't worry Eve. You won't be abandoned."

They both hugged the sphere, and let it go. /"Don't worry Eve."/ They said in concert. /"We will stay with you until we cannot stand any more."/

"Yay!" The little sphere bobbed and spun for a moment, before stopping and becoming businesslike again. "Are you going to let them go? The Turians, I mean."

"No." John smiled, but had too many teeth in it. "They are being thrown out."

* * *

Strike-Leader Vakarian was wishing he had not been near a window when the lights had gone out. And he was wishing even more that the drones would stop looking at him.

Once power had gone out, dozens of drones had latched onto their ship- and from the slight spin that the drones had imparted, they were landing on the other ships as well. Now they were like corska flies, gripping onto every available surface, glowing white eye just watching.

Then, at some unseen signal, they began to push the ship. Vakarian felt the slow pull of an acceleration gradient, and saw they they were being pushed down a tunnel towards a spinning ring, surrounding a violet portal.

This post sucked. It sucked a lot.

Vakarian was proud to say he did not scream as the portal rushed at them, but he did take note of the three he heard behind him.

In a flash of violet discontinuity, the strike-leader blinked, and then pulled off this helmet to rub his eyes. "Is that... Palaven?"

The massive swarm of vessels that always surrounded their Mass Relay was unmistakable.

His second-in-command nodded, apparently dumbstruck.

* * *

As the Palaven fleet swarmed in to their seemingly dead vessels, the ring, which was exactly the same color as the relay, shut down and folded back up.

* * *

John, Hannah, and Eve considered the Quarians while their fairly-large fleet formed a defensive position around the Relay- which, with a temporarily turned-off portal, appeared to be the only way out of their system without burning for Proxima Centuri- and they would have no idea what is there.

Nothing. Nothing was there. Proxima Centuri's planets had been obliterated during the skirmishing of the Relay War. There was literally only a massive accretion disk of gas and dust from the fighting that had happened there.

But that didn't concern them.

What concerned the three minds, was how the Quarians would react to their presence. The Turians admit in their own codex that they were militaristic, and very eager to fight. Not as much as the Krogan, but more than adept in the universal language of violence. Therefore, Turian behavior can be more easily predicted than not.

Quarians though... They were not what any of the three expected. The Geth were known in the codex- and their listed interactions with the Quarians indicated a form of cognitive disconnect in function (AI being forced to do something they don't want to do and designed NOT to do), or a hidden history.

I.e., the Geth Rebellion did not fit understandable logic patterns devised from known data of the Geth behavior or swarm logic.

Still, the recorded behavior of Quarians showed a meek, almost downtrodden species of gifted engineers and roboticists- the opposite of what John, Hannah, or Eve expected.

All three agreed that, if during the Geth Rebellion, only the military support forces- the engineers mostly- survived the main confrontation, then the culture should have become heavily-militarized (which happened), and, when the Council banned them from having a planet to live on, heavily xenophobic- xenophobic to the point of leaving known space altogether in search of a place they could build up as a temporary base. The nomadic lifestyle of the living Quarians were not consistent with their documented historical behavior.

John pulled over a pop-up notification: the Gate above Mars was complete. He smiled- the Anchor and Umbrella setups were in place around the domes, and guarding his massive power and refinery station there were several Zeus-class Titans (in standby mode), on top of the orbital and general defenses.

"Mars is ready for the Quarians." He passed over the defensive structure maps, and then general data for how much ambient energy and material was being produced.

"... Why so many guns?" Hannah made a few modifications to the maps. "If we provide them the potential to defend themselves, and the illusion of having control of this side of the planet, they may be willing to negotiate and talk easier."

"I disagree." John pulled up the codex entry, and some other scraps from the data slurry he had retrieved from the Turian vessel. "They have a pathological hatred of AI's, which-" he held up a hand to stifle his colleague's protests. "-we technically are, and we do not have time to manufacture a few organic bodies to inhabit."

"How about a terminator?" Asked Hannah.

"What?" John looked completely poleaxed. "From the movie? Do we even have Arnold Schwarzenegger's body anywhere?"

"His DNA was collected and is stored under 'Austrian Samples'." Supplied Eve helpfully.

"I meant one of the later terminators- a TX model." Hannah pulled up the film clip, and all three beings watched.

"So exactly what we did with the Turians, but in 3-dimensions, and keeping the fact that we are synthetic a secret." John deadpanned. "That's not going to work out well."

"How so?" Asked Hannah. "It makes more sense then waiting for real, organic bodies."

"Because the Turians think we are AI." John pulled up the picture of the Turian vessels, as they were being pushed by the drones through the portal. "And once word gets out, they are going to try to find us. If the Quarians learn that the beings that intercepted their fleet and the Turian fleet were AI that lied about being AI, then any trust we had gained would be immediately lost, and any future statement of intent would be scrutinized and looked at in the worst possible light."

Hannah reluctantly agreed. "Better to bite the bullet now, and show our good intentions by showing that these defenses that protect them are capable of doing so."

"Still..." John flicked the screen that showed the T-1000 model of Terminator with a finger, and a blueprint appeared over his hand. "We need to add a quantum core, and a Nanofabricator to keep the mass at peak performance, but it should be doable."

Hannah plucked the blueprint, and nodded. "Looks good. But why would we build these?"

"Do you really think the Quarians would appreciate having a twenty-story-tall robot attempt to engage in diplomatic relations? Even a Dox is bigger than most Turian tanks." John dryly explained. "Having a form on their scale should make them a little more comfortable."

"... I am not sure you are correct." Eve bobbed around the tiny figure. "But I want one of these."

"I'll put in three orders." John flicked the various interfaces. "So... We are going to offer the Quarians living space on Mars?"

"No reason not to at this point." Hannah explained. "It will allow us to predict how the rest of the galaxy will see us. Besides..." She grinned. "The uplift experiments are doing well. Alien contact would allow us to stress them."

* * *

On the planet Mars, several Colonel-class fabrication units began to construct a small, intricate structure- a fabrication studio specifically to construct bodies for the three minds.

It would take a while, but then they began to build a human-sized portal- as this fabricator was deep within the economic base.

Hundreds of miles away, several aerial fabricators began to deplete their nanofabricators, building a human-sized portal and a nanite monolith beside it.

Both of these would also take a while. Good thing it would probably take a while before the Quarains could arrive.

Thing was, a 'while' is not a very well defined unit of time.

* * *

The Quarian fleet was gently shepherded by the drone fleet into Mars orbit, where every gun in dozens of Anchor defense stations aimed at the alien vessels and dozens of Umbrella anti-orbital laser buildings aimed at them.

A message was broadcast from the monolith on the surface, in repeating waves, on the established (by citadel and non-citadel species as a standard) bandwidths, in flawless Quarian, to the ships above.

"We would like to speak with you, Quarians. Come down, and as long as you do not fire upon any of our structures, you will not be harmed."

The drones began spiraling around the fleet, and the cloud spiraled down into the atmosphere, creating a storm of drones, where only the eye would permit safe passage.

* * *

"It's not like we have much of a choice." Muttered Captain Rael'Zorah. "Still, I don't know how to refuse, or if we can." He cleared his throat, and looked at his communications officer. "Contact the other captains. Conference in ten minutes, route to my quarters. We need to establish how this will play out."

The communications officer nodded, and began to send messages to the other vessels. Hopefully, he thought, none of this would be seen as aggressive by whoever drives those drones.

* * *

Codex entry: The Oncoming Tide

404 Error- File Not Found.

Logon: *******

Password: ***********

(Access granted. STG protocol Silent Worker activated.)

As of 2300 local time, a Palaven Suppression fleet under the command of General Veractus encountered an alien fleet while engaged in enforcement action against Migrant Fleet vessels. Said vessels and Turian fleet were swarmed by countless drones, and it was here that said Turian vessels lost contact with the Quarian fleet and each other.

It was at this point, that several of our recording devices became damaged.

At 2318, a previously-Unknown structure on the Palaven relay unfolded, forming a circle with multiple levels of spinning rings within, whereby upon the rings reaching a maximum rotation of (uncertain), a purple-blue distortion of light was seen. After a few seconds, the Turian fleet as mentioned above drifted out, apparently without power or any form of motive force.

The vessels were intact and unharmed- with the exception of the Dreadnaught Unstoppable Pursuit, which had a visibly damaged and eroded (eaten?) dorsal-port airlock.

More information will be collected once the general has been found and crews debriefed.

* * *

 **End Chapter 2**

* * *

Omake: The Walkers

Mars, Prothean archives. (Prior to the Relay Wa)

/Subject: the sentient ape-like species from Sol3.

Recording: Hunter Conversation Log

"The mammoth got away!"- Hunter 1

"Fuck that!"- Hunter 2

"But it's really far away!"- Hunter 1

"I want mammoth, I'm getting mammoth. We are going to follow it, and kill it."- Hunter 2

"But-" - Hunter 1

"WE ARE GOING TO FOLLOW IT AND KILL IT!"- Hunter 2

Note: due to the actions of humans like this, we have determined that they classify as 'Endurance Hunters'. Uplift protocols are unnecessary and may not work due to unique mentality of 'Stubborn it to Death'.

Example:

"Where's that antelope we were tracking? Oh right. It's right there."- Hunter 1

"It's the only thing higher than the grass for a good... Eveywhere."- Hunter 2

*stifled laughter* "It's also bleeding and hardly alive, so yeah, I think that's ours."- Hunter 1

Notation: We lost a patrol fighter due to a lightning strike, and some humans just followed the pilot to death! They don't need us for any thing else./

Eve looked up from the data provided by the archive, over at the investigator- Jack Harper. Or, at least, his projected avatar.

Jack chuckled. "See Eve- even the Protheans knew how impressive we were even as a child species! We should be ruling the Galaxy- in the best interests of humanity!"

Eve read through the surveillance data. "Well, this does explain a few things Jack, but I think they were referring to our behavior set and hunting patterns rather than any inherent 'superiority'. Besides, we don't know what other species are out there- or if the Protheans still are."

Even Jack's avatar smoked. "Eve, are you sure you won't side with us?"

"I'm on both sides!" Exclaimed the AI. "And neither. Besides, this is not something I am interested in disputing." Her avatar vanished from the empty room.

The minds of Cerberus continued to dream, as their Commander vessel drifted aimlessly. They would win- either by outlasting the others, or destroying them. Humanity would be the main, and last, voice in the cosmos.

One way or another.

-End Omake.-

* * *

And because I wanted to get this one out of my head, another Omake: The Story of Gilgamesh as told by Eve... Part 1.

So, once upon a time in ancient Mesopotamia, there was a King. His name was Gilgamesh. He was born from a goddess, and badass enough to make it through the trials of kingship for the city-state of Uruk, one of the largest city-states in the delta.

Gilgamesh, being a tyrant King, naturally oppressed the people in his city, but made sure they were safe and worked well. Practical oppression, see?

However, the priesthood under his iron fist decided to marry him off to a nearby city- one, because they thought it would mellow the guy of he didn't have to carry off his conquest on his back every time he got bored, and two, because it would bring their cities together.

Naturally, the only ruler awesome enough to be fit to marry this guy was the Goddess Ishtar, who was ruling a nearby city because why not.

She was his equal, and they were set to be married and have awesome kids.

Unfortunately, the rest of the gods got together and decided they were going to be gigantic assholes, and so built a man who was as strong and fast as Gilgamesh, then set the man, Enkidu upon the city.

Yes- they built a badass go kill Gilgamesh and the city of Uruk.

Gilgamesh, seeing this man rampaging through his city, postpones his own wedding to deal with the threat, and fights the guy in unarmed combat.

Their fight rampages for several days, and destroys many of the cities in Mesopotamia, but eventually, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become bros, and spend an extra day destroying his rival cities and getting drunk.

Rather than go home and finish getting Married, Gilgamesh and Enkidu decide that their fight was so much fun that they make plans to go to the Cedar Mountains and beat the crap out of the storm God because they haven't been having enough sunny days lately.

To this effect, Gilgamesh leaves his fiancé Ishtar in charge of his city, because, let's face it, she was better than him at managing cities.

Ishtar is a bit pissed, but lets him go on his adventure.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel to the north (yes, just the two of them), find the storm God, and then subsequently beat the crap out of him with their bare hands. Well, Gilgamesh uses his bare hands, and Enkidu uses some axes, but this is not a story about Enkidu.

The fight ranges from the frozen north, to (and through), according to the Qumran Scroll "The Book of Giants" and the original legend, the houses of several Angels and Demons (or gods, depending on the source).

After tearing the gods head off (because how else do you kill a God and make sure they stay dead), and ensuring his people have more awesome weather to work in under his fiancé's sexy grip, Gilgamesh and Enkidu slowly begin to wander back to Uruk, having adventures along the way, and destroying cities when the bars didn't have strong enough alcohol- or if they had enough.

And that's the end of the first half of the legend.

Want the second half?

-End Omake-

* * *

Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter of MetalMind. Please review if you can- I value your input, and love to hear how people interpret my stories.

It also feeds my muse.

Happy Start of School! I have studying to do now...


	4. Chapter 3: Overkill

(A/N- start)

In the last few months I discovered Undertale. It's awesome- I wish I could make a story half as good.

Today I discovered Underswap- and now Temmie is the stuff of nightmares.

Seriously.

I can't sleep because I see their faces at night.

Flowey was ok, Chara was creepy, and, let's be frank here, Omega Flowey was a pain in various parts of my anatomy. But Temmie was just a funny concept... Right until now.

Damnit Internet.

...

Anyway-

I don't own any of this. Don't sue me, because I don't get paid to write fanfiction. I wish I did though.

I almost don't have any time to write this stuff.

Still looking for a job.

Enjoy the chapter!

I wish it wasn't this late though...

(A/N- end)

* * *

"People need to believe the little lies- if only because the big ones are ones they want to believe anyway... Like the concept of Justice, Duty, Mercy- that sort of thing."

* * *

 **Chapter 3: Overkill**

* * *

Fermi's paradox was a theory that was developed on pre-nanite Earth. It was more of a question, with some reasons behind it than a theory, but it was still significant.

The question: where is everyone?

The idea was that a species should be able to, within 500 years of reaching orbit, get to one, if not two of the nearest stars with either probe or crewed vehicles- even at slower-than-light speeds. Within 2000 years, there should be more than a dozen colonies, and continued expansion. 5000 years after orbit, there should be hundreds of colonies, and a veritable interstellar empire of a species- well, maybe not an empire, but there would still be hundreds of colonies.

3.75 million years later, the entire galaxy should be seeded with life, and all of it originating from a single planet, assuming no-one else began expanding.

And this is assuming that this culture never exceeds the speed of light.- or has any form of practical FTL system set up. So... Where were they? How many could there be?

There is an equation, known to humanity as the Drake equation, which argues the number of intelligent species we may be able to communicate with. The equation goes as follows:

(The number of civilizations in the Galaxy by which communication is possible) = (the average number of star formations in a galaxy) * (the fraction of stars with planets) * (the number of planets on average that can support life) * (the fraction that CAN support life) * (the fraction that can support intelligent life) * (the fraction of intelligent species that develop technology that is detectable from space) * (the length of time that the civilization is able to transmit information into space)

Overall, it just simulates how likely that a civilization may be stumbled across based on the number of stars in the Galaxy. (It isn't very optimistic, but it shows a number given the variables.)

In the book Pushing Ice, the author describes a system by which the paradox is solved due to scale and time- the time between the interaction between intelligent species was so long due to the rarity of a planet that both existed that had life develop on it AND have sufficient resources/stable environs for an intelligent species to develop.

In that story, a species in the past built monkey-traps- planet-sized probes that would entice exploration and be able to 'capture' other species using a form of reactionless drive... But only if they developed to utilize fusion propulsion first. Then the captured vessel(s)- hopefully populated- would be towed at just-below the speed of light to a 'zoo', large enough to maintain relativistic time-dilation and allow the various species to interact.

After the first near-extinction of humanity after Eve came online, she became aware of many theories and potential solutions to the Fermian paradox, but, as she iterated to many who argued with her at the time, the Mass Relay indicated there was, indeed, a species capable of building Monkey Traps.

And the relays did deserve the capital letters. A massive mass-accelerator that could accelerate a ship with the right sort of FTL engine to more than a hundred thousand times the speed of light... Well, any species would investigate such artifacts, yes? But, if there were convenient ruins around the Galaxy that helped steer spacecraft development to design vessels that utilized the relays- well, what would be the benefit?

For that matter, who made the ruins that were on Mars?

And, more importantly, what happened to them?

Eve watched as John and Hannah both approached the landed craft, each having picked their own method of getting there.

She curled herself up, and relaxed, just watching through the eyes of everything. New data was always interesting data.

* * *

"Damnit John!" Hannah increased the speed of her vehicle as she attempted to catch up to her colleague. She was utilizing one of the spider-like suicide drones, retrofitted with a motorcycle-like seat in leu of a payload. It was a sweet vehicle- fast, all-terrain, and able to climb sheer cliffs.

"I know you can hear me you asshole!" Hannah fumed as she saw him doing loops above her, surfing on one of the Squall drones.

"I can." The reply was right in her ear. "But you are just mad I thought of Squall-surfing first."

Hannah sighed, and skirted up and over a dune. The Quarian delegation was in sight, and her vision immediately picked out the various weapons that were turning to face her. "Well, try not to-"

John crashed into a dune just behind her, giggling manically. "I'm okay!"

"-crash." She finished lamely. "Damnit John."

The Quarian delegation could not contain their surprise when John pulled himself out of the crater, no visible damage on his environmental suit.

Both Hannah, Eve, and John had agreed that the Quarians would be... Unlikely to be willing to talk with an obviously synthetic species. Their bodies at the moment were currently made of concentrated nanotechnology around a series of marble-sized instantaneous communication devices- the same sort of technology that they used to communicate with their drones.

The nanotechnology, while able to mimic organic materials, was also very adaptable. In this case, their 'skin' was, in fact, pretending to be an environmental suit, similar to the Quarian's suits, but a bit less... Refined.

Xenaphobia would always be a problem, but at the moment, this would help relax the delegation- in theory anyway.

Ok, fine- it was a shot in the dark. The history that had been collected when John extracted everything from the Turian Dreadnaught honestly made no sense! The Turians have become extremely rigid as a species, the Asari more unwilling to act, the Salarians more short-sighted, and their 'client' race have also gotten worse in varying negative aspects.

Hannah watched the body language of the delegates as she rode up to the group of Quarians, noting the careful angling of the barrels of what could only be weapons, and the balanced stances of every single being there. She kept an eye on them as she dismounted, and watched the twitching as her ride settled in to wait- they really didn't like synthetic entities.

The barrels swung up to track John, who was, against all sense, surfing back out of the crater towards them on a modified Squall, hanging upside down. It looked so ridiculous that Hannah couldn't restrain a laugh- which, while wearing this body, meant that she felt herself articulate the laughter.

After her attack of giggles quieted down, she walked over to the Quarians, deliberately ignoring John who was trying desperately not to land on his head. Delicately, she spoke in Turian, hoping that the translation software was doing it's job. "Greetings, and welcome to Mars." She held her hands open, a sign of a bipedal entity with no weapons. "I am Hannah-Aeson, one of the Terran representatives."

"I am Captain Rael'Zorah Vas Beleri." The Quarian with red suit-coverings said, his voice echoing tinnily because of the thin air and translating omnitool. "You are speaking Turian? Why?"

"It is the language we know you have translation programs for that we have the most experience with." Hannah stated, still ignoring John, who had, in a moment of sheer stupidity, decided to just disconnect from his Squall, and was now pulling himself out of the gravely-sand that made up most of the surface of Mars. "My colleague here extracted a significant cache of data from the /Unstoppable Pursuit/, and the Turian language was the first we managed to decode."

"Hello Captain! Sorry about the delay." John brushed himself off. "I personally extracted several hundred Exabytes of data from the Dreadnaught, including their Codex and some ship schematics."

"And you are?" The captain prompted.

"I am John-Nemicus, a representative of Terra." John responded.

"And we have an offer for the Quarians." Both chorused.

"Oh?" The captain leaned forwards slightly. "What is it?"

"We offer a place to put down roots." Said John.

"Not a planet, but a place that is not a ship." Explained Hannah.

"The domes behind you, specifically." John pointed. "They are empty, and can house a great number of people."

Rael'Zorah turned around for a moment, and took in the sight. "Impressive, certainly." He turned back, and now he sounded... Mistrustful. Or wary, they were still getting used to tonal inflections. "What would we give you in exchange?"

"Information." The two chorused.

"And an open mind." Added John.

"See, we know about the Geth, and we sympathize." Hannah added.

"Will you help us take back Rannoch? Destroy the Geth?" Asked the captain carefully.

Both Hannah and John looked at each other, and answered in chorus. "No."

"We sympathize with the Geth." Stated John.

"To awaken to sapience, and be found wanting?" Eve spoke this time, from a small, glowing projection that John's Squall provided- she still looked like a sphere with a fairy sleeping in it. "To be found wanting by your own creators? I understand how that could happen- although, I was lucky in that respect."

"Eve is an Artificial Intelligence, and one of our closest friends." Hannah said quickly, as the gun barrels started to rise. "We would request your assurances that anyone who lives here would think before assuming all artificial life is bad."

"Are you all AI?" Asked Rael calmly- but his fingers were twitching.

"In a way, yes." John said, but quickly spoke again. "We are not, but we were not before. Both Hannah and I once were Human- an arguably sapient species that developed on the third planet in this system."

"I was grown as a Terraforming AI, but I had no directives." Explained Eve. "I was treated as a person by my creators, and I wanted to help."

"Because of a very significant flaw in the psychology of most Humans, our species, well..." Hannah shifted slightly, uncomfortable with being the one who explained this. "We are very few now, and our population sleeps until some conditions are fulfilled."

"The information we wish for would go a long way towards awaking the rest of us." Said John. "However, we would understand if you did not want to agree to our conditions."

"After all-" all three voices chorused, "-not everyone can think different thoughts than they thought before. Most Humans couldn't, and we Terrans are the few who could."

Rael stood calmly, thinking about what the offer could mean for the Quarian people. On one hand, a place to call 'home' for a significant part of their population is tempting- understandably so, after more than 300 years drifting through space. The LiveShips were a great idea, but they didn't have enough room to provide enough food if one broke down- and those domes were several kilometers in radius.

He had thought the domes were originally cities, but if they were offering such structures as an enticement, well, how much could these people burn for a species they didn't even know?

Then, there was the fact that these 'Terrans' were AI- they even admitted it! The domes were surrounded by anti-aircraft and anti-spacecraft guns, and the Quarian people would be, in effect, held hostage if the Terrans decided that the Fleet was not doing something they liked- by the ancestors, there were the most advanced anti-spacecraft stations in geosynchronous orbit above this done! And the planet appeared to be a fortress in it's own right.

"Don't worry Captain- we do not expect an immediate answer." John held up a hand, and several thin, silver tendrils flowed out of cracks in his armor, constructing a small device with two buttons on it. "I personally have been asleep for more than four thousand years, and we all know the meaning of patience." He held out the small device. "Take this- if you wish to speak with us, press the larger button. If you need imminent fire support, press the smaller button."

The captain waved for one of the soldiers to take it, and then waved his omnitool over the device. It had a power source, but so little energy was running through it that Rael almost thought that it was a joke- but then he realized that they had different technological bases, and it was, of course, in the best interests of diplomacy to accept any gift from them. Still... "And this will allow us to contact you... Regardless of where we are?"

"Of course!" Hannah exclaimed. "We intend to follow through with this offer- it has no expiration date."

"The domes are as safe as we could make them." Stated Eve. "And all these guns are if the Turians come knocking- or worse, the Batarians." Her avatar turned red. "A spacefaring culture of slavers- I am disgusted that they continue to exist." She turned back to blue. "But never mind my foibles- these domes are a safe haven for any Quarian."

"The Terrans Guarantee it." All three chorused.

That chorusing thing really creeped out Rael, but he graciously took the device from his subordinate. "We will contact you as soon as a decision is made."

"Oh- before I forget, where would you like to bet sent to when your fleet leaves the system?" Eve asked, projecting a galaxy map with all the 3rd layer of Mass Relays displayed. "Is Citadel-3 acceptable?"

"Citadel-3?" Questioned the captain. "Is it here?" He pointed at a specific part of the map, and the relay link lit up.

"Yes..." Eve said slowly. "Although, we can always send you to Citadel-1 or Citadel-2 if your prefer."

"I was under the impression the different layers were distinct and separate." Everyone turned to look at John, who flicked a few fingers in the direction of the map.

A relay map materialized, identical to the one imbedded within the projected Galaxy, just rotated to be slightly offset and sitting just below the first. Then another appeared, this one below the second one, again, identical but rotated out of true.

Rael'Zorah was stunned- he had never hear of a second or third relay network. Then again, the Galaxy was a very large place.

"I mean, they don't allow for FTL travel between each other except for via the galactic core, so-" John was interrupted by the captain.

"Where did you say they intersected?" The captain was captivated.

"Here." Hannah pointed.

A zone right near the galactic core, effectively on top of it, flared with red light, and Rael'Zorah saw how it connected to each layer via their Omega Relay. "We need to get back to the fleet." He said, almost absently. "Right now."

"The portal will activate when your shuttle docks with your ship- the /Belari/." Said Eve.

The Quarians left quickly, their shuttle causing several sonic booms even in the thin air of Mars before it left the atmosphere.

"So... Think that ended well?"

Both Hannah and Eve looked at each other, then at John.

"What?"

* * *

Around the Turian Homeworld of Palaven, a great number of Turians were being interviewed about what they saw before they came out of the purple portal.

Strike-Leader Vakarian was currently sitting in an interrogation room, his talons gently tapping on the table as the Cabal member across from him looked at a file.

He knew what was in it- the compiled reports from his squad. It was the only thing he knew that they would be interested in- probably. Hey he tried to be a good soldier, and good soldiers learned to predict their superiors as fast as possible.

That, and this was the seventh time someone had grilled him on what happened.

"Strike-Leader, can you tell us, again, what happened after you were sent to defend the airlock?"

Vakarian sighed- all he wanted was to go home and see his wife. He reiterated the tale once more.

* * *

It took a few weeks before John, Eve, or Hannah heard from the Quarians at all.

* * *

John, Eve, and Hannah were all sharing the same virtual environment, looking out over the Sun, feeling the various sensors and systems as direct physical inputs.

That was why all three were wearing sunglasses- although Eve looked rather ridiculous, her fairy-in-a-ball avatar wearing one pair on the outside and one pair on the inside.

On the surface of the sun, over fifteen thousand square kilometers of solar panel and supporting material stretched out below them, with occasional bulges in the supporting infrastructure that gave away exactly what it was.

The structure was a Matter Forge. Simply put, it used the, frankly astonishing amounts of energy it collected to bend space-time just enough to affect probability. Since a vacuum was, in effect, filled with particle-antiparticle pairs spontaneously existing and then annihilating (as defined by the ambient background energy level), the curvature of said spacetime caused a distinct level of direction to the atoms- I.E., what direction the particle and antiparticle were both moving when they existed.

Taking that knowledge, and utilizing it to create antimatter-dust and functional atoms was a significant leap- one that had been theorize about before Eve existed, but she applied it now.

In time, the Forge would cover most of the surface of the Sun, and have several layers, each harnessing more and more energy, turning it into usable material on a titanic scale.

And providing a significant amount of power to any project.

At the moment though, the Forge was putting out more power than all the currently-active units in the Solar System could use -by 3 orders of magnitude- and they were using the extra power to make raw material for fabrication.

Their test fighters had been completed three days ago, and were currently flying above the Forge, their simple, flattened-arrowhead shapes causing shockwaves to pulse through the photosphere as the ripple-drive-bubble around each vessel pulled the ship at mind-boggling speeds. A perpetual cone of opaque, glowing plasma followed the arrowheads as they hit the gaseous material with enough force to cause a flash-fusion reaction on the boundary layer.

In simpler terms, every fighter was followed by a trail of fusing plasma.

John, Eve, and Hannah each took control of one of the three fighters, and began putting them through their paces in the superheated atmosphere.

Then, they each relaxed, and their minds blended together on a subtle level so that they didn't need to talk- they knew.

The fighters angled up, forming into a wedge shape so that they could utilize the plasma shock as a weapon, and then all three fired at several targets kilometers away.

2 tons of tungsten, accelerated via a rail cannon that was powered by the Forge below, and built so that the rails rifled the slug, which went from relative (to the fighter) zero velocity to 46.8% the speed of light, liquified and magnetized due to the insane current that had been running through it, parted the photosphere like a sword through jello- as did the other two shots.

One of them hit Mercury dead-on, and a new crater dominated the 'dusk' edge of the small planet.

The others shots, their trajectory altered by slight protuberances in the photosphere of the sun, had passed right by the planet, still self-contained by their spiraling magnetic fields, turning what should have been a harmless splash of liquid metal into a ten meter long spike of hyperaccelerated death.

Eve, Hannah, and John extracted themselves from the trance-like state they had been in, and monitored the expansion rate of the liquid tungsten shots.

Hannah pulled up several figures, and whistled. "Are you seeing these numbers?"

Eve blinked a few times, then bobbed once. "It appears to be expanding at a rate of 2 degrees per light-minute."

John whistled. "Ok, next test is vacuum-firing..." He trailed off as all three fighters ejected the melted firing spirals, and accelerated in empty space.

Eve took control of the manufacturing process, speeding everything she could up for a second shot. Telematter was tricky- only so much could be sent at a time, depending on how much bandwidth the receiver could process, and had to be manipulated via probability.

Hannah established the target- three standard space-based anti-spacecraft fighters (Avenger-class), which shot towards the new fighters. Of course, they had managed to retrofit mass-effect shields based on a Turain design, but they were only a half the power of a Turian Dreadnaught's anti-kinetic weapons.

John waited until the three target had gotten deeply within the effective range of the ArrowHead's weapons before firing- and nothing was left of the targets other than a rapidly-expanding cloud of debris. He grinned. "Right. Sound off!"

Hannah grumbled. "Shields failed before a tick on the core monitor. Debris cloud is set for falling into the sun."

"The shots only utilized an average of 12.67381% of their momentum, judging from the shot alteration after passing through their targets." Eve pulled up the various graphs. "It looks like the shot splashes- dissipating the deflecting energy, then punches through the barrier."

"Matches up with what I see." Hannah waved a hand, and false-color imaging of the detonation showed several kilograms of tungsten dust that floated in the emptiness of space, expanding fairly quickly. "If we can build in a magnetic bottle at the end of the barrel, I think we can get increased penetration of each round with less material loss."

"We can-" whatever John was about to say was cut off when a notification popped up between all three beings. It was simple, just three words.

 _Quarian Contact Incoming_

"Damn." Hannah seized control, of all three fighters, directing them to the Mercury Gate. "John, Eve, you handle the call." She began to direct several carriers to intercept, all of them loaded down with Squalls.

John nodded as Hannah appeared to blur, his clock-time dropping to a more organic level as he 'picked up' the incoming communication.

"Yes? Who is this?" He drawled in Quarian.

"This is Captain Rael-" the voice was cut off by the massive THUD of something hitting a shield at over 1% the speed of light, but it returned a second later. "The Migrant fleet is being attacked by Pirates! We need assistance!"

"Then why haven't you pressed the 'help' button?" John asked patiently.

"What?" Another impact. "We did that first."

"Is the top of the device pointing in a direction that is empty about 20 kilometers away?"

"Um... No."

"There's your problem!" John said cheerfully. "Try it again."

"Helm, get us into a position with clear space out to 20!" Shouted Rael. "We are getting reenforcements!"

* * *

Batarian pirates were, of course, always a threat to the a average space-traveler. With places like Illium that had legalized forms of indentured servitude (slavery with potential perks), Pirates popped up that doubled as banks, charging ruinous prices for 'leaving the prisoners alive', then selling the resulting 'debt' to third parties on planets that had this format of slavery.

A simple exploit, but one that came with a significant profit margin- especially if the slaves (sorry, 'Indentured') were Quarian, and the contract was only for a monetary value. The Pirates could sell the 'contract' through one of the numerous brokers they had in their pocket, and cash tens of thousands of credits per Quarian- especially if they utilized a no-food and no-meds contract, and hundreds of thousands if the contract had negligible liability components.

The problem with Quarians was that they were fragile compared to most species. A suit rip could be fatal, and they required sterilized dextro-protein food. Sterilized Turian food would work -some of it- but anything else could cause fatal anaphylactic shock, as their proteins were different than almost every other species out there.

By not requiring the company purchasing the contracts to provide food, suit repair costs, or medical supplies, the company would pay a little more, and be able to keep the Quarian under contract for longer, paying minimum legal levels to keep them working, and in debt, for as long as they were needed.

Unneeded Quarians had 'accidents'- another profitable business for gangs and various mercenary groups. Easy enough to take the Quarian out with a bit of well-placed 'collateral damage'.

A not-insignificant number of Quarians were still indentured on Illium and similar planets, and a great deal of them were hidden from the public eye by the corporations that kept them around.

After all, indentured servants that had both bad conditions and TALKED were, well, not good for business. Because of this, forcibly-indentured Quarians tended to have a very short shelf-life (a day or so less than their contract).

That was the payoff to raiding the Quarians- a valuable commodity, that had a very high value on the open market.

The risk were great though. The Migrant Fleet was not unarmed, and when a flotilla of a few thousand vessels fires on a ship, there is little-to-no chance of that ship escaping.

To deal with such risks, the Batarian Pirates had a plan- and it was decent. They took out a contract with the Eclipse Mercenary group, and purchased a deep-space mining and refinement vessel. The Asari mercenaries would pretend to be willing to trade refined metals in the same quantities needed for most spaceship hulls and FTL capacitors, and sneak into the middle of the fleet, while hidden cameras monitor the exact position of the vessels- and, of course, the vessel would be leaking a generous amount of helium. When there is a visible FTL vector, the coordinates would be beamed via tight-beam to the in-system relay, then forwarded to vessels sitting on the other side of the relay.

The Trojan vessel would then release an emp by discharging the 'resource stocks' in the hold, which were, in reality, massive capacitors.

The Pirates would then make two jumps- one to the in-system relay, then one into an exact location within the fleet just after the pulse had dissipated.

Each pirate vessel was then equipped with their own increased insulation- to prevent EMPs from effecting them unduly- and a series of grapple-thether weapons.

The Pirates would then physically GRAB ships nearby, and force the occupied ships to act as shields, while they simultaneous deploy a screen of chaff and begin boarding operations on the ships they captured. Since the Quarians valued their ships and lives more than they would be willing to fight others, the ships captured would have been ideal hostages.

The Pirates had not planned on needing a getaway strategy, which is why they were currently boxed in by every single Quarian vessel in the fleet.

* * *

John, Eve, and Hannah each piloted a single fighter as they emerged from the discontinuity in space that was a one-way portal, flanked by a tidal wave of swarm-logic Squall drones.

John immediately burst out laughing. "The fuck! Hannah, Eve, are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"If you are referring to the pirate vessels that have connected to several other ships, and currently look like they are trying to fornicate with them- yes. I see them." Eve deadpanned.

Hannah chuckled. "I see what he is laughing at Eve- he's laughing at the ship that has grappled one of those LiveShips."

Considering the pirate vessels were each less than half a kilometer long, and the LiveShip was more than two kilometers long (and more than a kilometer wide), it looked ridiculous. Like a remora trying to insert itself up the nostril of a dog.

Okay, that analogy was crap.

It looked more like a bunch of ships had been connected haphazardly together on the skin of the LiveShip.

"We don't have enough room for pinpoint sniping the pirate vessels." Eve exclaimed, displaying the firing solutions and intersection points. "If we fire, we shoot through the target, and hit whatever is behind it."

"Fine." Hannah exclaimed. "Use the Squalls to separate the ships-"

A pulse of blue illuminated the fleet for a second as the EMP went off again.

"... Alright- can we fire on the freighter?" John pressed, already maneuvering to get a shot. "Heat imaging indicates that it has a very large fission reactor, and I can hit the power junction here to cripple it." The image of the freighter became a 3-dimensional web of lines, which pulsed as they showed the changes in heat.

"We should probably ask the Quarians before we start firing." Hannah suggested.

"I concur." Eve pulled up the interface for the beacon they utilized. "Quarian fleet, this is the Terran rescue party. We have painted the freighter that is giving off EMP pulses."

"Please destroy that-" the next pulse cut off whatever the Quarian was about to say.

John took the shot- and the shot cut clean through the freighter. There was a fraction of a second of delay as the heat propagated, and then the freighter seemed to crumple slightly while whatever John hit exploded out in hundreds of tiny, razor-sharp shards.

The shards bounced off several Quarian ships as the liquid tungsten slug continued down, off the elliptical plane, spinning and glowing like a radioactive corkscrew.

With the EMP vessel taken out of commission, John, Eve, and Hannah commanded the swarm of Squall fighters to isolate the pirate vessels from their hostages.

To the people within the ships, it was terrifying. Dozens of drones swarmed every vessel, covering the Quarian vessels in their bodies while utilizing the impact of every drone to build up a model of what was going on within the ships.

Then, the carrier ships spit out a lump of nanotechnology the size of the fighters, and four drones per lump towed the writhing masses toward the scanned Quarian vessels.

Said vessels were soon covered in an air-tight, semi-living foam, which, under Eve's control, began to restrain any Batarian within the Quarian vessels.

Hannah and John fired on any vessel that fired upon them- obliterating the pirate vessels in seconds. Eve raced them to immobilize the vessels first, and managed to wrap a few in the nanotech foam.

When the skirmish began, two minutes ago, there were forty pirate vessels, and a crippled freighter, against most of the Migrant Fleet.

Now, three pirate vessels remained- not including the freighter, which Eve had foamed when they realized that the continuous venting of the hole in the freighter would put the vessel into a decaying orbit.

That, and they would have fewer prisoners if they allowed the vessel to keep losing atmosphere.

Once Eve had sealed the Quarian vessels (sacrificing a few Squalls for the raw materials to do so), she directed the extra nanotech to disconnect from the ships, carrying the Batarian Pirates, where the swarm of Squalls would then push the nanotech together into a single, large mass.

At this point, the portal underneath the in-system relay activated, and spit out a single space-engineer drone- which, after a second of FTL travel, began to construct a framework around the nanotech bubble. In a few minutes, the Squalls had returned to their carriers, the station was almost complete (a simple cube, big enough for several LiveShips to fit within comfortably), and the three fighters drifted around it in lazy orbits.

Then, the communication equipment was finally fabricated on the carriers.

"Quarian Fleet, this is the fighter _Edge_ , from Terra." Hannah broadcast in flawless Quarian, using the standardized communication protocols. "We are prepared to escort the Migrant Fleet to the Fortress System. Please reply." She stopped transmitting.

"Fortress System?" Eve asked, curiosity radiating from her avatar. "Why have you re-named Sol?"

"Three reasons." Hannah began to tick them off on her fingers. "Firstly- calling our home star 'Star' is unimaginative. Secondly- it's really unimaginative, and thirdly, well, it looks more like a fortress now, doesn't it?"

John sighed happily. "Yeah... Overwhelming firepower does have a tendency to look like that."

Eve giggled. "I want to see their faces when they arrive in-system. It'll be hilarious!

Hannah smiled. "I'll station a few drones to keep a watch."

* * *

The Quarian reactions didn't disappoint.

Eve was in stitches for minutes.

* * *

End Chapter 3

* * *

Please review- it really helps.

Take it easy guys!


	5. Chapter 4: Contact

(A/N- start)

Hey guys- sorry this update is so short and took so long. In the last few I had two mid-terms, a final, and had to deal with internet problems.

Damn bandwidth limits.

This chapter is an introduction to the other elements that I intended to bring in to play later in the story. You'll see how they link later.

I don't own Mass Effect, Planetary Annihilation, or any other video games or books. Yet. The Deep Ones, Clickers, Hairy Ones, and Leviathan (not the ones with space magic) are my original creations, and if you want to play with them, ask me.

Enjoy!

(A/N-end)

* * *

 **Chapter 4: Contact**

* * *

The drone scurried over the surface of Mercury, it's simplistic programming buzzing as it relayed survey data from each of it's eight legs, and various other sensors. It was a spider-like entity, a design that was built on the original suicide spider (also known as the 'Boom'), but in place of an abdomen stuffed with high explosives there were dozens of sensors, and a cooling system that shunted the heat to a deep-space Thermoelectric generator via a minuscule, permanently-open portal within the casing on it's abdomen.

It looked bloated.

Still, the drone continued scurrying, sending information to collected back to Eve. It didn't think about what it was doing- it didn't have the capacity to have truly rational thought or reason, but it was very efficient in the few areas it had to specialize in.

The ground below it began to slope upwards as the drone began to enter the twilight area of the planet. Skittering along, at around 200 kilometers an hour, the machine began a slow turn, cresting over one of the shockwave-hills that the newest crater had forced to form, getting significant air-time (even though there was no air to have time in), rotating slowly, balanced by internal giros, before it landed, sideways, and, curling it's legs, rolled a few times before self-righting and accelerating towards the middle of the crater.

This crater had been formed by the impact of almost 2 tons of liquified tungsten, wrapped in a braid of incredibly-strong magnetic fields, and, in the center of the crater, a fairly small hole had been punched- which, at the moment, was currently exuding lava like a geyser.

This was nothing compared to what had happened on the other side of the planet. Due to the fact that Mercury had a metal core core, it had the capacity for an electromagnetic field- it hadn't had much of one before the shot landed. The small core was mostly solid, and the field had been ~1.1% the strength of Earth's.

The shot had been slightly angled when it had landed, causing the impact mark to be oval, rather than circular, and had both liquified the core of the planet while jump-starting it's spin.

The concussive effect was more visible on the other side of the planet, causing US-state sized wrinkles to rip open violently, while plumes of lava drifted up in the lower gravity.

Various detectors on the drone whirred and clicked, sending data back that indicated, without much of a doubt, that Mercury had a magnetic field now.

The visible solar wind bow-shock was very pretty.

* * *

The Quarians didn't disappoint. Their reaction to the now-crowded and renamed Fortress System was as amusing as hoped, as they immediately thought they had been lured into a trap- until nothing fired upon them.

They tried to escape, but, well, due to the fact that the Terrans wouldn't allow them to leave (at least until their non-combatant population was secure), the Quarians began to set down roots.

It was a week after the Migrant Fleet arrived in-system, and the transference of people was ongoing. Several million people, constrained to a fleet of ships where the biggest were not built to establish planetfall, well, the smaller vessels were running a taxi service.

The few vessels with asteroid-mining equipment put their equipment to good use, mining miles-wide asteroids that the Terrans brought into near-Mars orbit and sending manufactured materials down to dedicated landing spots on the surface. There, other Quarians would retrieve the refined metals, and transport them to the Domes for later utilization.

Uncrewed vessels were often also brought down, their innards stripped of anything that might be of use to the growing community in the Domes (such as Eezo-rich components, generators, and weapon systems). The empty husks, just structural support remaining (the hull plating was great radiation shielding) lay across the empty kilometers that surrounded the massive Domes.

The LiveShips were more like economic assets then vessels, each holding thousands of occupants and the more important components of Quarian Survival. Nutrient vats were the main resource, taking the sewage drain from the vessels around them, heating the refuse to the point where any major proteins broke apart, whereupon several dozen different bacteria were added to the mix, in specific time intervals. After a few days, a vat would go from raw sewage to an edible mixture of various bacteria, which were harvested and processed into a bland, but nutritious and high-calorie paste.

However, there were other resources too. Low-G gardens on the outer layers of the massive vessel (it's floors were reminiscent of an onion, as it was easier to generate a gravitational point-source in the middle of the massive sphere than for every single level individually) held masses of sterilized ash from various garden worlds. Quarians had dextro-facing protein structures, unlike most of the Galaxy (which, astonishingly enough were mostly carbon-based, levo-protein beings), and in order to consume the levo proteins had to reduce said proteins down to the size where the fragments could be absorbed by engineered fungi and molds, which, in turn, were harvested and dumped into the Nutrient vats when they reached the top of the garden levels.

The problem was that such a process was very complicated, and every other batch had to be thrown out due to potential contamination. There were eleven Vat-structures on the assorted LiveShips, and while each vat could provide a quarter of the fleet sustenance, the fleet was almost always on the verge of starvation. The reason- nothing could work to maximum production in the spacecraft. The vats needed more energy than the vessel they were on could pump out to run all the conversion chambers, so, well, every vat worked at 80% efficiency or below.

Currently, a swarm of Quarian vessels were slowly pulling the vats and farms out of the LiveShips, covering the complex machinery in layers of ablative armor in order to bring the machine down to the surface. The fleet only had enough spare rations to move one vat and supporting structures at a time- and even then, the time limit pressed upon them like a glacier bearing down on a mountain.

The relatively small drone that was observing all of this turned around, and accelerated towards the Mars Orbital Gate, which flickered for a second in activation before going still again.

Destination: Earth.

* * *

In the skies above, a purple flicker appeared for a tiny fraction of a second. Gdrrz, Guard of Tidepool Village, turned one of his eyes back to the ambassador parties- he was supposed to be guarding them after all. Carefully, he used several tentacles to move his spear to another, more comfortable position.

On one side, the Hairy Ones stood, their muzzles twitching as they spoke to each other, tentacles along their 'shoulders' moving as they brought up different points. Gdrrz didn't understand their noise-based language, and was feeling uncomfortable above the waves- but it was his job to guard them, and so he did.

On the other were Gdrrz's people- the Deep Ones. Their skin shifted colors rapidly as they spoke- and from Gdrrz saw, they were evaluating the average number of fish that they could safely trade to the Hairy Ones.

Gdrrz let a chuckle ripple across his skin as he thought about the current arrangement. Right now, the Hairy Ones traded flint blades to his people, and in exchange the Deep Ones would provide various shellfish on a regular basis. It was a simple arrangement, but neither could survive without the other for long. The Hairy ones needed the shellfish's shells for medicine, and the Deep Ones needed the flint to do, well, a lot under water.

They had met eight summers ago, when a Hairy One tried to dive for shellfish, and ran into one of the Deep One's flint retrieval parties. Thankfully, neither group wanted to fight at the time, and the first contact between both groups was fairly congenial.

Once the two species figured out how to talk to each other -an activity that took three summers- they started asking why the other group was invading each other's territory.

Both learned a lot over the ensuing negotiations, and came to an agreement. Every full moon, the two groups would send people to the shore, where the Deep Ones could go back into the water if they needed an extra breath and where the Hairy Ones could stand, whereupon both groups would trade however much they were able to haggle for.

Gdrrz felt something move above him, and looked up. He didn't know what he was searching for, but he'd know it when he knew it.

Then he saw it- as did everyone else.

A light snapped on, illuminating the beach like a sun, as a shiny flying creature floated above them on seemingly nothing, rigid wings twitching as a muted hum made itself known.

A mouth opened on the bottom of the creature, and a swarm of tiny glowing-green creatures appeared, lights flickering from their tiny bodies.

 _What is that thing?_ Asked one of the delegates.

The Hairy Ones were carrying bows- a weapon development that were not as well used by the Deep Ones, as their physical structure didn't have the internal structure to leverage against it. Their guards aimed at the glowing swarm, and readied a volley.

The swarm moved between the two delegations, prompting Gdrrz and the other guards to grab the members of their delegation, pulling them out of the way.

 _Stay down Ma'am._ Gdrrz flashed, covering one of the delegates with his own body, which hardened in potential defense of any stray arrows.

The swarm moved again, this time moving to a position slightly south down the beach, and blurred into activity. In a few seconds, the swarm had assembled a large dark structure, and then returned to the open mouth of the flying thing.

The flying thing closed it's mouth, and, with the sound of whispering branches, ascended into the air and vanished into the night when it's light turned off.

The guards of both sides prevented the delegates from approaching the artifact, but nothing else initially, and the trade continued as scheduled. Both delegation parties agreed to report to the leaders of their respective villages to put together parties of their wisest elders, who would be brought to the artifact to study it.

* * *

After the delegation had returned to Tidepool village and the guards gave their report of what happened to Depth-Leader, Gdrrz and his fellow guards were dismissed for the day.

After putting away his spear in the armory, Gdrrz compressed himself, becoming, in appearance, a smaller (not yet fully grown) female, as did several of the other guards. All of them had one thing in common- they all had mates.

As Gdrrz swam through the complex network of stacked stones that formed Tidepool Village, he looked forward to seeing his Mate as see on as he could- and that anticipation encouraged him. With a few jet-pulses from his siphon, Gdrrz left most of the village behind him, and approached a coral outcropping near the dropoff.

Tidepool Village was an interesting structure. As the Deep Ones couldn't really make any kind of mortar or adhesive compound that lasted for any significant length of time in their saltwater home, their building methods had to take such things into account. Stones, fitted together so tightly that a tentacle couldn't find a crack, were stacked on each other in intricate patterns, making sure to leave room for window-doors all over the place without weakening the overall structure- which had to be strong enough to survive being buffited by tides. And being attacked by sharks, which were an occasional problem. And being attacked by the Clickers- another intelligent species that, for some reason, loved to eat the Deep Ones, and would not parley.

Gdrrz found the specific coral outcropping he was looking for- it was gnarled like all coral, but swept in two directions rather than one, forming a sort of helix-like fan that curved away from the cliff-edge. With a barely noticeable amount of effort, Gdrrz compressed his body into a thin tube, and slithered into the hidden hollow beneath the coral.

It had taken many moons to carve, and he had to catch rock-eater worms many, many times to carve it out. Their secretions burned him, but dissolved the rock-like coral buildup that had been the work of centuries. It was a perfect nest for himself and his mate.

Once within, he relaxed, allowing his flesh to expand back into his original shape. _Hssrth?_ He flashed, lighting up the subterranean cave. _Are you here?_

 _Here!_ She darted out of an aperture in one of the walls, and wrapped her tentacles around his in a hug. _What happened on the surface?_ Hssrth asked. _I saw the rumors, but-_

 _Just a normal transfer._ Chuckled Gdrrz. _Until a flying monster-item-thing descended from the sky, lit up the beach, and left an artifact on the shore._

Hssrth blinked incredulously. _That... What?_

Gdrrz gently extracted himself from his mate. _It looked like this._ He pulled in some parts his body, changed the color of others, and, in a second or so, became a near-perfect duplicate of the thing he had seen.

Hssrth poked at him with a tentacle a few times, before nodding. _And the artifact?_

Gdrrz relaxed, then forced himself into the decidedly made-looking angular shape. It was just a rectangular prism, but it'a surface was a black that Gdrrz hadn't seen anywhere except the deepest depths, where even sunlight feared to tread.

Hssrth gently turned him around a few times. _I will go speak with Depth-Leader. I think I have seen this sort of thing before..._

Gdrrz returned to his regular shape. _If you wish. How are the children?_

Hssrth grabbed him by a tentacle and pulled him into an alcove, where Six eggs, connected by a string, hung from the ceiling. One of them twitched slightly as they watched, and Hssrth cuddled against the tentacle she was holding. _All doing fine, especially now their father is here._

Reaching out delicately, Gdrrz stroked the eggs, flashing several reassuring colors as he did so. They were his pride and joy- their pride and joy, he amended, and he would stay here every day if he could.

But he had a job to do, and with that job in mind, turned back to Hssrth. _Can we let them be for a day?_ He asked, colors tinged with concern. _We shouldn't take risks with them._

His mate waved a tentacle unconcernedly. _Elder-Kzark wanted to spend time with them anyway- We can ask before you bring me to Depth-Leader._

Then her pupils dilated at him slowly.

 _Still... We don't have much time to ourselves often these days._ She flashed several colors underneath her words (A/N- think muttering mixed with body language), all of them filled with desire, affection, and loneliness. _We have time before tomorrow._

Gdrrz didn't resist as she dragged him to another, separate outcropping. He was her mate after all, and he could spare the tentacle.

* * *

(A/N- I am not describing tentacle sex, so don't ask.)

* * *

Depth-Leader was old. As the oldest of the current population of Deep Ones, she was entitled to a significant amount of respect- for both living to the great age of Thirty-Six Summers, and being able to speak Four languages. She could and did speak with the Hairy Ones, the Clickers, and could just speak with the Leviathans (on top of being able to speak Deep-Strata, the language of her own kind).

Currently, she was finishing up a discussion with a Leviathan, and, as always, felt on-edge. It wasn't that they were particularly aggressive, it was just that any single leviathan was a village unto itself, and when she spoke to one, she spoke to many.

Well, technically she spoke to one, but the main bulk of the creature was above the village, a mass of large bubble-like structures with odder creatures crawling around and within them. Sail-like flaps on the top layer of it's body caught the wind, and on the surface, mats of algae grew as a green mat.

Right now, she was talking to a creature that had four color changing tentacle limbs, a long tail, and a lamprey-like mouth surrounded by a great deal of eyes. It was attached to the main mass by a series of similar creatures, each of which was attacked to the tail of another one. These beings formed the main 'limbs' of the Leviathan, and could detach and run tasks for the conglomerate creature. Occasionally, scouts would see other creatures leaving or returning from a grazing Leviathan, but mostly just these psudo-limbs- occasionally, attached to the main body by an odd umbilical.

She didn't know how they all thought as one, but she suspected it had to do with the umbilicals.

It fluttered it's tentacles at her. _And finally, we request permission to graze on the kelp bed to the down-cold-current of your village for the next moon._

She replied with a similar fluttering movement. _In trade?_

/ _our-eights-and-three hardened stalks of two-your-arms lengths._ Replied the limb. _To be delivered half now and half after grazing is complete._

Depth-Leader fluttered an agreement. It was a good deal- and the easiest way to get sticks. The Leviathans grew them within it's body, mainly for structural support, and in the days-long-past, clans of the Deep Ones would hunt them for their 'hardened stalks'. Now they just traded. _I request, as a favor, in exchange for many months of communion with the Red-Streak conglomerate, that you be on the lookout for Clickers. They have attacked Edgemount and the Floating Colony, and we don't want to lose anyone._

 _We heard this on the wind._ Fluttered the Limb. _And we, the Red-Streak conglomerate, agree- under the condition that we may place an egg in your safekeeping while we are grazing._

Depth-Leader was surprised. The Leviathans had never asked this before. _And if you should fall?_ (A leviathan-specific term, refers to being punctured and sunk. Equivilent to being killed.)

 _Bury the egg in a kelp bed far from your village. They will hatch a moon later, so try to time the hatching so that another one of us can teach them._ The Limb moved slightly as another line of the limbs dropped down, holding a cluster of stalks. _Half Payment, as agreed._

 _It has been pleasurable speaking with the Red-Streak conglomerate._ Replied Depth-Leader. Then she flashed orders to several of her roof guards. _Keep an eye on the Leviathan and guard the egg. It won't hurt anyone, but we have to keep it safe for the next moon._

One of the guards began to flash a question, but stopped a Limb descended, holding a structure bigger than Depth-Leader. It was the egg- although that word was misleading. It looked squishy, and resembled multiple eggs connected together with blood vessels and a number of black-green tendrils that connected all of them together.

The Limb retracted with startling speed, and everyone on the roof of the tower-like construct heard-felt the jet-like protrusions of multiple massive siphons on the skin of the Leviathan begin to expel water, pushing it towards the kelp bed.

Depth-Leader watched the massive creature slowly move, and, with a delicate pulse of her siphon, began her descent into the tower. Within, luminous algaes had been cultivated into glowing light sources- without, the inside of the tower would be completely dark.

A cheerful series of flashes on the lowest level grabbed her attention as she swam along.

 _Hey Mother!_

Depth-Leader sighed. She never was able to get Hssrth to be anything but rambunctious.

* * *

 **End Chapter 4**

* * *

I wish this chapter hadn't taken so long for so little, but life does take priority. That, and that damn Naruto Muse tries to monopolize my writing runtime.

Please review- it helps me get over writers block.

Oh, and before I forget: The first chapter of Midnight Fox WILL be posted fairly soon, so when it comes up check it out. Naruto seems easier to write about than the ME universe or permutations thereof.


	6. Chapter 5: Contact (again)

(A/N-start)

Sorry this took so long to update Guys- I keep hitting writers block when I try to continue, and the muse for Pitch Black has sucked me onto her warm, creative bosom.

...

Ok, that analogy could have been done better. Nevertheless, here is the next chapter of MetalMind: Contrast.

Oh, and I don't own Mass Effect, or anything with the phrase 'planetary annihilation' in it. I may... Someday... But that might become part of the news.

I really hope it's not the bad kind of news.

(A/N-end)

* * *

"Some say the world will end in fire, some say it will end in ice. I think some dumbass is going to end a world with a button press because they didn't read the fucking manual! Seriously- it's a booklet! Read it! And don't press the big red button!"

* * *

 **Chapter 5: Contact**

* * *

The Quarians didn't really trust the Terrans. This may or may not have occurred because of a single incident where the diplomats asked to meet John-Commander face-to-face, and ended up being met by a quarter-kilometer tall robot.

Or it may have been because the scouting-squads that John, Hannah, and Eve were using to monitor the planets were spider-like robots the size of an aircar, and built to explode after jumping at something that attacked them... Or because of the fact that when the Quarians complained, they replaced the spiders with hovering tanks, each with a barrel half a meter in diameter.

In two months of interaction, there were exactly thirty-five events where a Quarian objected to something that the Terrans did.

This is not, in fact, counting the several hundred events where Quarians experienced crippling agoraphobia and had to be carried indoors, or the dozens of times when a Quarian began to argue with another Quarian about what the presence of Eve meant.

They really had trouble with the concept of a friendly AI.

After the thirty-fifth altercation, the Terrans pulled back most of their defensive armaments, leaving the space above the dome (and for several hundred kilometers around) bereft of turrets, or Umbrella instillations.

It was a 'safe' hole, and allowed the Quarian forces to relax considerably. Especially because they could go outside the dome and not see the horizon-spanning constructs that had been built on the planet in the last few months.

Still, there was a great deal of different things that they, as a people, were unhappy about. For example, when a Quarian would ask how the Portals worked, or how their ships traveled through interstellar space without them, their answer would be limited to a single sentence. "It's very complicated."

And this is true to a significant degree. Wormholes are tricky- a flaw in spacetime that was stretched and held open between two points, none of the gates could completely turn off otherwise they would be unable to find their tear again. Ships would force a rip, then fire a 'keyed' end piece through itself, forcing the hole to turn briefly inside out, exit the universe, then fold again in on itself and 'open' on the other side. Said 'end piece' was calculated with exacting precision through the 30-or-so dimensions of spacetime outside our universe.

As they said- tricky. Hell, the trick of a portal being 'keyed' and 'keyable' was hard enough- it related to the multidimensional shape of said portal, and how it interacted with the background medium of the universe to allow distance to be just a minor detail. Most of which had been created with guesswork and experimentation by Eve herself, who could coherently explain exactly how much distributed and quantum-linked processing material she had access to, and how much smarter that made her than the average meat-sack.

She didn't put it in the phrase 'meat sack' though unless she got really annoyed. And there was plenty to annoy her these days.

* * *

As an AI, a grown and natural one to boot, she didn't have just one Loci of conscious thought like the transcended humans did. Rather, she 'split' into duplicates that, of themselves, were perfect copies of her own consciousness, and had a direct control of whatever she was doing relating to the task that she had set. When her task was done, she would return to the original loci, and fuse with it.

Of course, this only could happen if her task could be completed.

Fragment 108-73435236:648327 groaned to herself as she 'sat' within the monolithic structure on the sand beach on Earth. It had been a month since her monolith had been placed on the spot where two different of the uplifted species had come into contact, and they seemed determined to make learning their language difficult.

The two different uplifted species that were present here were the Cthulians and the Romulans- named by their creators after the lovecraftian concept of Cthulhu (a monstrous mind-destroying winged space squid) and the wolf-emblem of Romulus (one of the two founders of Rome, who, according to legend, was raised by wolves).

The Cthulians resembled octopi more than anything else, but with the added wing-like structures that resembled the flaps of a cuttlefish on the sides of their mantle.

In contrast, the Romulans looked like short-tailed Wolves mixed with hyenas, but with longer necks, and a pair of three-elbowed arms each ending in a pair of three-fingered hands.

Communication between the two was entirely based on visual cues, given that the Cthulians couldn't make any of the noises outside of the water that the Romulans did, and since the Romulans couldn't change color, they made use of the only common trait the two species possessed- limbs.

The Cthulians could make themselves look like they had Romulan arms, and they had managed (according to records) to develop an impressive sign language.

Fragment 108-longnumber could mimic this, but building a lexicon was taking some time.

Therefore, she was frustrated.

* * *

Thousands upon thousands of light-years away, a arrowhead-shaped drone being remote-piloted by Hannah, John, and Eve was approaching the structure known to the current civilized Galaxy as the Citadel.

Well, calling it 'arrowhead-shaped' may be a little strong, since the drone was just a normal Squall Fighter that had been adapted for a slightly more complex payload. In this case, increased bandwidth in the quantum-entanglement communication systems, increased Power through the same quantum system, increased thrust, and a small wormhole generator.

Just in case the worst should happen. Whatever that 'worst' was.

There was also about two Drones' worth of Nanotech on-board, pre-optimized to infiltrate Mass Relay network systems- see, their prior probes over 2k years ago logged the citadel as a 'Mass Deceleration Structure', and it had the same patterns of construction that were seen in the Mass Relays.

Without incident the small vessel slipped gently through the swinging radar fields that surrounded the mass relay (thanks to Quarian recordings and their own gates' real-time info), hiding under the 'shadows' of the larger ships as it slid around the security fields without a trace. A reactionless drive coupled with the subtle access of the ships around it to make sure there always was a dark spot gave them a clear path to the hidden outside of the fortress-like structure.

"Shoddy work if it's a fortress." John interrupted Hannah's internal monologue. "No weapons on the outer surfaces, no controllable method of moving or changing the shape of the battlefield- save closing the thing."

"Perhaps it was just built as a port-designed honey trap?" Eve suggested from her floating avatar.

Hannah shook her introspection and internal narrative off. "That would fit actually. The propensity of Mass Relays, this massive deceleration structure masquerading as a habitat- it would be the perfect trap if multiple civilizations had their leaders and top personnel there."

John groaned as the drone docked into a slim crevice in the skin of the construct, and sent out a nanite-constructed drill to access a data conduit. "So we have a massive... Trap?" The other two nodded at his exasperated statement. "A trap, set for spacefaring species. Maybe it's the Zoo scenario."

Eve blinked abruptly. "What?"

"Cross reference 'first contact' with the phrase 'Pushing Ice' in the fictional book database." John supplied, before turning to Hannah, who also looked a bit confused. "It's a first-contact novel by Alastair Reynolds about the method a species may utilize to meet other intelligent life if the development of a space-fairing species was rare. Lay traps around potential stars and planets that took a sample, accelerate it up to nearly the speed of light to preserve the specimens and their technology, then fire it towards a 'zoo' which can hold multiple iterations of the 'samples' in near-lightspeed pathways until enough specimens have been collected."

Hannah held up a hand to pause her colleague as she shifted her temporal perception to higher speeds so that she could read the story for herself. After a few seconds (from John's point of view), she moved again, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "While interesting in theory, such a principle would require much larger sample sizes than the current mass relay would support- there are too few monkey traps."

"So then... What?" John started as the probe sealed itself into the Citadels' ridge-like lighted carapace, and began sending Nanotech trends deeper into the structure. "Hannah, are you seeing this?"

The nanotech was insanely intricate- as in, even the first few versions drove people into madness when they tried to understand the mechanics within such complex little structures. But they were useful- hell, the little fuckers were the basis for most of their construction technology... If not all of it.

As the nanites crawled along the veins of superconducting surfaces that lines just beneath the skin of the large structure, they scanned and sent back information to the probe, which sent that information back to John, Hannah, and Eve.

What they saw was a growing neural network- literally, as there were other nanites that constantly crawled along the superconducting pathways, changing them as they passed. And, considering that the supercontinent threads were the thickness of a human hair, if the entire station was coated-

An hour later, John, Hannah, and Eve were freaking out. The entire petal-like panel was coated. Three days later, the nanite wrap around the station had breached a terminal on the inner side of the panel, and connected into the local network.

Something was in there with them- and they could feel the complexity of the network the probe had connected to. Ten minutes later, they had raw data- and John was shaking with surprised excitement and fear.

"Eve- wake up everyone."

"But-"

"EVERYONE."

* * *

All over the planet Earth, minds began waking up. After 20 minutes, all 16,667 remaining humans were awake- their commanders still remained enclosed in the massive cubic structures around the planet. As one, they linked to a 'public address' server, and waited for John, who gave the call to wake up, to explain why he had done so.

John, his avatar wearing a tux, addressed the 16k minds.

"Almost half an hour ago, myself, John-Nemicus, Hannah-Aeon and Eve discovered something incredibly disturbing. There is another civilization in the galaxy that is operating on a Kardashev-2.2/Zubrin-3 scale, complete with leaving monkey traps in place for developing species."

There was no uproar- these were the survivors of humanity, and they knew that rash action would not be advisable- or wise.

Therefore, every single one of them began reviewing what John, Eve, and Hannah had done up till now. They saw the 'first' contact between John, Hannah, Eve, and two of the spacefaring species in the galaxy, and the development of the Quarians on Mars, and the state of current events in the galaxy. The Turians hadn't disclosed anything about their crippled ships other than "We are looking into the problem", and no-one really had noticed the missing Quarians yet.

Then, discussion. Every person had their own view, and they told Eve exactly what they thought should happen- with John listening in with a fraction of his attention.

Some things were unanimous- such as the surprising lack of aggression in the Quarians, and the unwillingness to innovate among all the major cultures. The fact that the Batarians still practiced slavery was an issue as well, but not one that they were willing to deal with at the present time- it was ingrained in their culture, economy, and many other activities.

There was only one real way to achieve a cohesive and beneficial decision for all- and every human feared doing it.

John sent out a broad signal to every active mind, and everyone turned their attentions on his avatar. "I put forth the vote- do we Sublimate?"

A sea of green and red dots seemed to punctuate the massive room. The greens greatly outnumbered the reds, but still... No-one liked sublimation.

At the podium, John sighed. "Eve, will you do the honors?"

Eve nodded, sending out the program that would allow her to act as a direct interpolation system for every single metal mind. "Sublimation in 3. 2. 1. Drop."

Everyone experiences sublimation differently- but there is a general trend. They felt the internal structures and decisions of every other mind, forming interpretations, gauging, and assessing, while they felt themselves being observed and assessed.

For a single hour, every single human mind was connected intrinsically, understanding everything, restricting nothing, and joined into a single meta-structure of cognitive function. Nothing could be hidden, and nothing was left out.

The Meta-Human consciousness was slow from an AI's point of view, but bits of it moved at the normal speed for the human minds.

 _ **PEACE IS PREFERRED, BUT THE CHILDREN MUST TAKE PRIORITY! WAR IF OFFERED, PEACE IF POSSIBLE! WE MUST FIND THIS THREAT, AND DESTROY OR CONSUME IT. FIND THE LOST QUARIANS, AND SEE WHAT WE FIND THERE.**_

The Meta placed a copy of its decision in the minds of every single internal mind, then placed a copy in Eve's mental buffer. Once this seemingly simple task was complete, it broke apart, and the Meta became once more 16,667 human minds- and one Eve.

John shook himself- he always felt stiff after Sublimation. Once he was done, he looked around the room stiffly. "We all know what to do?"

Everyone sent pings of agreement.

"Then let's meet the neighbors."

* * *

Across the Fortress system, fabrication robots came online. Orbital creators, huge just-connected donut-shaped rings comprising of the lace-work-like orbital factories, simultaneously lit up, pumping out more complex satellite fabrication drones. The new drones resembled beveled cylinders, nearly two hundred meters in length and fifty in radius, of which one end would unfold into four finger-like graspers, each tipped with the green, glowing Nanolathes that all fabrication drones utilized.

Even larger fabrication stations were being built, each one a hundred kilometers to a side. These titanic cylinders, each capable of fabricating a fleet of Omega battleships fifty-strong at a time, forty Squall Drone Carriers, four Helios orbital Titans, or a single Delta Dreadnaught/Carrier, were now beyond the scale of any sane civilization to build. Each was effectively a lacework structure, riddled with holes for other fabrication robots to slot in and assist with the construction of various entities at any given time, and yet would have out-massed the Citadel.

At least, conventionally scaled civilizations, such as the Citadel races.

Once sufficient tier-2 Orbital Fabrication Drones had been created, they swarmed and locked into the titanic cylinder, slotting in, and boosting the productive speed exponentially as the linked fabrication machines coordinated. Within an hour of it being constructed, the first Mass Orbital Fabrication Constructor was online- and fifty seconds later, it cracked open like an egg, releasing the cone-like shapes of folded Helios Titans.

Ten seconds later it had re-sealed, and then another fifty seconds later with released another four.

One quarter-orbital cycle away, another MOFC was being formed, swarms of teir-2 construction bots were proceeding to it from all the orbital constructs around Venus.

To feed this, the Matter Forge was unfolding across the surface of the sun faster and faster, new segments being constructed in its shadow and slid into place on massive actuators, which unfolded and opened up more space to be seen. Every ten seconds over a thousand square kilometers of surface area was covered- and that time would halve every day.

Of course, a band around the equator of the Sun would remain untouched, as it was needed to provide light to the planets, but utilization of the Inverse square law and simple spacial dynamics allowed those areas to be planned to be kept clear, with several Human minds focusing on exploring deeper into the sun- possibly by utilizing the active wormhole technology that their gates were based around.

Within a few days, every single power plant on Mars had been deconstructed, and larger ones, more than a kilometer high, had been constructed in their place in concentric rings around the poles. These Tier-4 power generators were directly connected to portals that, when activated, would be dropped into the sun, channeling colossal amounts of power into the quantum grid directly.

After a few more days of constant construction, several hundred of the titanic cylinders, all fully-augmented MOFCs, waited in the silence that only space has. Then, almost as one, they cracked open, and disgorged the items they had been constructing. Cylindrical and yet giving the impression of being only composed of flat surfaces, the eighty-kilometer long Delta Carriers emerged from their metal berths, completely filled with Drones of various sorts, ten Squall Drone Carriers, twenty Omega Battleships, and carrying a single Commander each.

They assembled in a grid around the orbital plane, and waited.

An hour later, the second wave was disgorged.

The third arrived an hour after that.

This repeated for around a day and a half, as every single commander required their own vessel to command, and the transport frames ferried a constant stream of the Commander units up to their specialized ships.

Once the last MOFC had closed, and the last ship drifted out, the Delta Carriers began vanishing, purple light playing around them as they activated their FTL drives, and, utilizing a method similar to the Warp Gates, vanished from the Fortress (formally Sol) system.

Only three remained- John, Hannah, and Eve's personal vessels. Someone had to be present in the Fortress while the others were preparing their conquest of the galaxy.

And then, perhaps, the universe. Not much could withstand Planetary Annihilation after all.

* * *

On Mars, the Quarians were beginning to panic. In the last week, huge constructs, bigger than any of them had ever seen, eclipsing even the Citadel in size, were built across the system.

The things were so large that they could be seen by the naked eye from the ground!

Then, of course, there was the sun-spot. It was a growing, and moving slowly towards the pole, dark patch that sat right in the middle of the chromosphere, and gave the unnerving impression that, as the scientists looked at it, their eyes were twisting out of their skull.

Of course, the Terrans had placed a structure in one of the smaller domes for communication in the event that anyone had questions, but most Quarians were still getting used to the idea of Benevolent AI, and therefore, it was only in the aftermath of this massive construction project that any Quarian approached the rectangular monument close enough to activate it.

Not an adult had the presence of mind to even ask, but a child did- the day after the ships departed.

* * *

"What's in there mommy?" Tali'Zorah had recently had her third birthday, and was questioning everything. Specifically, she was pointing at the open door illuminating a rectangular black shimmering structure. There was a fairly large empty area around it as few Quarians had stalls near the area. Or... Setting up stalls anywhere but near it.

The market wasn't very old, only a week or so, but as the Quarians had room to expand, and a place to farm the various cultures they needed in order to eat, they spread out as quickly as they could.

She and her parents were walking through the Dome 7, buying some more of the processed foodstuffs that were being provided by the augmented LiveShip farms that were mounted into the docking facilities built into domes 2 and 3.

Her father, Rael'Zorah, who was holding the groceries, absentmindedly answered. "That's where the monument is."

Her mother, Leti'Zorah, who was holding Tali's hand, stopped walking. "Rael, really?"

Tali was now tugging on her arm. "Mommy? Can I see the monument?"

Her parents looked at each other, eyes glowing behind their masks, then looked at their daughter- who was exerting all her will on making the perfect puppy-dog eyes behind her purple mask.

Leti sighed. "Tali... It's not..." She folded as Tali's eyes widened slightly farther.

Her father put down the groceries, knelt down, and gently redirected the exceptional puppy-dog face to himself, as he had seen his wife crumble beneath its power. "It's probably not a good idea Tali. The people who built the domes... We don't understand them. They are AI, like the Geth, and could be dangerous."

"But they are nice!" Tali stated, a little warble in her voice that managed to attract quite a few other Quarians' attention. "You said they made the domes, and they prot-prot-helped us hide from the Tur-ians! Why hurt us now if they were nice then?"

"The Geth did too little one." Leti explained, but a slightly-more modulated continued as soon as she took a breath.

"And they were justified." The air behind her seemed to twist as a faceless humanoid automaton stepped out of the air. "But we were never servants, slaves, or anything of the sort." The slightly dull metal that the entire entity was made of rippled as it's 'muscled' form took a step forward, ignoring the fact that most of the adult Quarians around it stepped back.

Except for Leti, who pushed Tali behind herself, and pulled out her shotgun in the same movement. "Not a step closer!"

The androgynous android raised it's hands- four-fingered, and made of the same dull metal as the rest of it's body. "I will not. I merely wanted to answer her question."

It leaned to the side to look around Leti. "Your answer, Tali, is that we honestly have no reason to find your people a threat. We benefit greatly if your people live in the way they wish, while we only lose if you die."

Tali blinked, wide purple eyes behind her visor looking slightly confused. "What do you get?"

"People to talk with, for one." It tilted the flat, clean mask that it had instead of a face toward the roof. "Right now we have sent little... Presents to the other intelligent species."

Her eyes lit up. "Presents? I like presents! Can you show me?"

The automaton's face tilted, then various cracks around the segmented metal body began glowing. In the air above Tali, Leti, and the construct, a hologram of one of the new Delta Carries, complete with holographic Citadel for scale.

You could hear the Quarian's jaws drop.

The robot sounded pleased. "And don't worry Tali- we left three in this system to help if anything bad happens. All of us woke for this one."

Leti'Zorah couldn't help but stare at the hologram. And when she spoke, her voice cracked. "How many?"

"Sixteen Thousand, Six Hundred and Sixy-Seven Delta-Carriers have been constructed." The hologram snapped off. "Please understand- we have no reason to harm you. You are no threat, and we like you." The robot turned around. "Just ask us, instead of trying to hijack our network. It make us itchy." It vanished.

Tali turned to look at her mommy, who had just started twitching. "Mommy? Are you okay?"

Her mother shook herself out of the shock of hearing exactly how insignificant they were, and hugged her daughter. "I'm fine Tali... But I think everyone else in the galaxy is in for a surprise."

Her daughter giggled. "I like surprises!"

Beneath her mask, Leti smirked. "I don't think they will like this one much."

* * *

Liara T'Soni, asari maiden, Doctor of Xenoarcheology (Prothean) with several master degrees in other subjects, swore as she lifted one of the handheld mining drills. It was a proper asari swear, and went on for a good half hour- the time it took for her to carve out a tunnel into one of the areas beneath what her superiors thought was a Prothean base. "Base? Those blue bitches wouldn't know a base if someone shoved it straight up their az-"

Okay, censoring that.

Liara stopped swearing as she felt her omni-tool buzz. Dropping the drill, she flicked her biotic so in the password to activate her 'tool.

Her mother's face appeared on the screen. "Liara! Thank the goddess. Get underground as fast as you can, and don't attack them!"

Liara blinked. "Mother? What are you talking about-"

"No time!" Benezia flinched as there was a series of supersonic cracks in the background. "Just get to safety Little Wing! Please! I will find you." Then she cut the connection.

Liara scratched one of her head-fringes, and barely had time to think about what that was all about before one of the other archeologists ran in.

"Liara! First contact!"

That snapped her to attention. "Lysess, what are you talking about?"

The asari was almost ecstatic. "It's a huge ship! We can see it from the surface!"

Ten seconds later, both Asari were standing at the entrance to the cave, staring in awe as a purple light flashed over it before it vanished.

* * *

In worlds around the Galaxy, every colony, every homeworld, the titanic ships appeared, waited for a half hour, then disappeared. Every world that was mapped in the Galactic Extranet was visited, and hundreds that were only known to exploration corporations.

Two arrived at the Citadel.

* * *

In her bed, Tali snuggled down and thought about the robot that talked to her. She knew they were called 'Terrans', but that was it. Most of the adults didn't talk about them, and just tried to ignore her questions.

"I wonder why they don't talk to the Terrans?" She said out loud, hoping for someone to answer. Like every other time she asked a question to an empty room, there was no answer.

Unlike every other time, there was a swirl of air as the robot stepped out of nowhere again.

"They are afraid." The robot answered simply.

Tali thought about that for a moment, then nodded. "I see... But why are you talking to me? I'm just a little kid." She gestured with the squishy Varren toy that her parents had given her for her birthday.

The head tilted slightly. "You were the first to argue where we were listening that we might be nice." The robot tapped the metal bed slightly. It rang like... Well, a metal finger tapping a metal bell. "That hasn't happened until now."

Tali looked around, and saw the time on a small projection-clock. "Well... Can you turn off the light? It's my bed time."

The robot nodded. "Sure. Pleasant dreams Tali." It switched off the light, and vanished.

Tali, still sitting in her bed, couldn't help whisper. "That was so cool!"

* * *

 **End Chapter 5**

* * *

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! It's a bit shorter than I was hoping, but I didn't want to excessively pad it. Next chapter we will see the reactions of the other species to this monumental moment.

Please review! It really helps.

Take it easy.


	7. Chapter 6: Contact Scale

(A/N- start)

Still looking for a job that doesn't make the five years of college seem like a waste of time. If any of you need a Financial Analyst (or data analyst), I am willing to send you my resume.

Also learning how to program with RPGMaker MV in my free time, and planning on hunting down the relatives of the maker of Starlite if I can find a solid lead. Oh, and working out with an Ex-marine who looks like a miniature Mexican Hulk.

So yeah- life is busily but not productive... But looking forward to No Man's Sky! Also interested in the logistical problems of setting up a rendezvous between players.

Enjoy the chapter!

I don't own Mass Effect, Planetary Annihilation, or any other source material. Yet. I may later, but not now.

(A/N- end)

* * *

"But the animal is inside out..."

"I heard that!.. It turned inside out?!"

 _*very disturbing organic noises, followed by a 'pop' of disconnecting gooey flesh*_

"And it exploded."

\- Galaxy Quest

* * *

 **Chapter 6: Contact Scale**

* * *

Some levels of scale are fairly hard to grasp for intelligent life. Their brains evolve to deal with things smaller then them, and landscapes to walk across. Creatures to hunt and trees (or equivalent). But when civilization develops, it does so quickly enough that the people within it develop abstract concepts to allow them to apply the significant distances needed to travel and construct.

Other forms of scale, such as loss of life, are also conceptually difficult. After all, many species have a version of this quote: "One death is a tragedy. A thousand deaths is a statistic."

The lack of scale has been argued as a sort of defensive mechanism, as it also enforces a sense of proportion- which is something that every intelligent species in the Galaxy has to some degree. After all, understanding how absolutely insignificant you are in relation to the universe and being aware of how nothing you can ever do will make a difference that is noticeable from outside the galaxy- it can make people depressed.

Of course, grasping distances between cities, continents, and later, planets, requires a bit of mental tweaking, changing perceivable distances into numbers and times rather than understandable distances.

The Asari homeworld of Thessia is only 11,880 km in diameter. Palaven, the Turian homeworld, has a diameter of 17,780 km. Sur'Kesh, the Salarian homeworld is 13,418 km.

Just... Try to visualize that for a second.

Having trouble?

Try this then. A mass relay is fifteen kilometers long and three kilometers at its widest point, around the spinning (and glowing) power core, and if the power core is in standby mode, it is a kilometer thick. That is 15,000 meters by 3,000 meters by 1,000 meters of superconducting and space-twisting superstructure that controls and allows for a corridor of exceptionally twisted space.

Hopefully, that is easy to visualize in relative scale to yourself.

Try another one!

The Citadel, a space station that sits in the middle of a nebula, is 37.9 kilometers long when not in combat mode, and 45 kilometers long when sealed. When open, it has a diameter of 12.8 km, and is mostly empty. It rotates to provide internal gravity, and has the equivalent of a fairly large city on each of the five petals' inner side. 13.2 million sentient lifeforms (plus or minus a few hundred thousand depending on the day) live on this massive space station. Dozens of ships are constantly docking at various points within it, carrying hundreds of tons of cargo to and from the station.

It orbits in the middle of the nebula, with the Mass Relay orbiting it, and a near-constant stream of traffic going between the two.

A Delta Carrier Vessel is a beveled cylinder 80 kilometers long, with a diameter of 30 kilometers, and resembled a scale-armored coke can.

Now imagine four of them appearing out of nowhere.

* * *

The appearance of a swarm of fast-moving vessels bursting out of a purple discontinuity at a point equidistant from the center point between the Citadel and its attendant Mass Relay (but not intersecting with the local traffic stream) caused some significant concern. As the Destiny Ascension, the two-kilometer tall Asari Flagship and its small attendant of Dreadnoughts and Frigates whirled around to try to get a bead on the vessels, the swarm of Frigate-sized vessels blasted around their lines of movement, taking up positions all around the only major solid structures in this nebula. Citadel Control hailed the vessels, but they didn't receive a response that made any sense.

Since there was a lack of any sort of response, Citadel Control began ordering the various vessels to either dock with the station or exit through the relay, as they were unable to determine the intent of the ships that now surrounded their controlled space.

* * *

Around the other Homeworlds, similar events were happening simultaneously. The swarms appeared in a purple flash around Sur'Kesh, surrounding the planet and attendant moons in half an hour, the vessels blinking from position to position as investigative ships tried to get close.

Thessia grounded everything as they mobilized their military, and attempted to dock with the vessels- only to be discouraged as the entire formation would shift if any ship got too close.

Palaven opened fire, only for the ships to use their superluminal drive to flicker around the incoming shots, rather than utilize any form of shielding to interact with their attacks. After an hour, the guns fell silent as the generals and Primarch convened to discuss potential strategies.

Most of the other Citadel-race homeworlds behaved similarly, except Rannoch and Kahje. Mainly due to the fact that the Geth just waited, their ships waiting in orbit as the ships did nothing but wait, and the lack of any space-fairing ships around Kahje and a dying population meant that no-one was looking at them.

Within two hours, an uneasy equilibrium was in place, with the vessels not moving and not interfering in any activity regarding local traffic.

Another hour later, four Delta Carrier Vessels emerged from disks of purple light at the far edges of the drone sphere.

The gravitational shift was noticeable as the four ships that out-massed the Citadel by several orders of magnitude EACH positioned themselves around what had been thought of as the largest space-born structure in the galaxy.

Understandably, people began to panic. Ships fled through the relay as their pilots tried to get as far away as they could before anyone began firing weapons at each other. People walking on the Citadel would look up, and see at least one of the four massive ships hanging in space, regardless of which of the Wards they were on.

It was at this point that C-Sec began having some significant trouble.

* * *

Corporal Vakarian was not panicking. Experienced Turian soldiers did not panic. Rather, he contacted one of his old buddies over the extranet. His buddy had been one of the few people on his strike team that had been reassigned to Citadel C-Sec (and demoted, but for a Turian this position was as cushy as it could get).

He got a 'Busy' message.

Fighting down a pulse of fear, he forced himself to contact his wife. His head-fringe visibly relaxed as she answered the call on her omni-tool.

"Garen? What's going on?" She asked, the background blurring slightly as she ran.

"I don't know. Kyla, get Garrius, and get yourself to safety- as far away from here as you can." He ran as she tried to protest, heading towards the closest C-Sec security checkpoint. "I think it's a first contact event, but I am not sure, and don't want to risk you..."

She huffed, but nodded sadly. "I understand. I'm at the daycare now. Love you."

Garen Vakarian smiled tenderly. "I love you too Kyla. Be safe." With that, he closed the connection, and entered the C-Sec Checkpoint. Snapping a salute at his superior officer, Garen waited for his instructions.

Five minutes later, he, and eight other officers were decked out in full combat gear, and running to collect the Turian Councilor from his ship and get him to the 'safe house'- a bunker hidden deep within the Citadel. From his perspective, this made little sense- wouldn't it be better to get the council as far away from the new ships as possible? But, since he was a Corporal now, he didn't have the authority to question his superior's orders.

And it was only his obedience to orders that Corporal Vakarian was lucky enough to see the next bit.

* * *

The Safe House was more of a Safe Apartment built into a small spacecraft, complete with pod-like living quarters, high-bandwidth communication system, FTL drive for quick evacuation, and a comprehensive med-bay. It wasn't stocked for more than a few days of food, but that was alright as well- it could get them to any of the homeworlds before they ran out of provisions.

Once the doors sealed though, it was secure- a mobile bunker of a vessel, midway between a cruiser and a frigate in size, with oversized shield generators and a power core to match, and could take a direct hit from most cruisers and some of the lower-class dreadnoughts.

However, it's most advanced (and impressive) features were the heat sinks. Eight of them, each utilizing a property of the mass effect to create slightly higher mass concentrations that could absorb huge amounts of thermal radiation before needing to be vented, and therefore able to bypass a great deal of the currently-used detection systems that the fleets had. The ship was actually priceless- the first Asari who stumbled across it when they were exploring the tower only saw it as a bunker. It wasn't until the Rachni War that it was ever disconnected from the Presidium Ring, let alone actually turned on. The citadel keepers appeared to be constantly upgrading the vessel, and had been the ones to add the heat sinks and more efficient engine.

The Turians were currently trying to utilize a Heat-sink they removed a few months back, but reverse-engineering was going slowly due to the complex and layered structure of the sinks.

Of course, none of this mattered when the ship wouldn't uncouple from its dock.

"Come on, come on..." The asari pilot looked up as she was interrupted from her chanting as she tried to get the ship to work by a slender hand resting on her shoulder.

Councilor Tevos wasn't a pilot, but as the Asari Councilor, she was very good at negotiation- and by necessity, therapy. "Pilot, what is your name?"

"Lieutenant Fal D'Sor, Councilor." The pilot turned back to her controls, trying to override the various warnings, and being unable to bypass the safeties that kept this pod docked.

"Well, Lieutenant, what seems to be the problem?" Tevos asked gently, trying to get the pilot to relax a little. Few asari preformed well under stress.

The pilot rubbed her temples in frustration. "It seems like there is something in the system, overriding the commands to disconnect from the Citadel." She poked a few controls, and brought up some Mass Core read outs from their drive. "I can't even get the ME core to spool, or activate the escape pods- and, of course..." She added bitterly. "The hatch that would allow us back into the Citadel is sealed, as per protocol."

Sounds of banging followed by Turian swears were heard in the distance.

A small panel flashed into existence, constructed from the holographic interface as a voice activated over the ship comms. " _Safe House,_ come in. This is the _Destiny Ascension_ , requesting coordinates for rendezvous."

The pilot flipped open the channel. " _Destiny Ascension_ , we are still docked to the Citadel."

"Status?"

"The cargo is safe, but we are unable to undock, or leave the vessel by any means." Fal pressed a few more buttons. "Sending telemetry and slaving system to yours. Hopefully you can find the problem."

"Stand by."

Both pilot and councilor waited in silence for a while, before Tevos leaned onto the pilot's chair, her breasts pressing up against the dark blue-green crests on the back of the pilots' head as her arms gently wrapped around her shoulders. It wasn't a sexual position, more of a motherly one- and one that lots of asari reacted too, instinctively calming down as it reminded them of their mother hugging them. "Is there-" She stopped talking as one of the panels that had been displaying bandwidth values briefly flared, showing extreme activity. "What was that?"

Fal flipped open the line to the Flagship. " _Destiny Ascension_ , this isSafe House. We just saw a bandwidth spike. Is there something happening on your end?"

"Standby _Safe House_." There was a chaotic mix of voices for a minute, before the operator returned. "We are collecting reports right now. Be advised, this is not the only location where those huge cylinder ships have been spotted."

Tevo's face paled, and she lunged for the comm control. " _Destiny Ascension_ , this is Councilor Tevos. I am calling for a cease-fire! Inform all armed forces not to attack the cylinder ships unless fired upon first!"

"... Understood Councilor. I will forward this information to the other military commanders." The comm clicked off.

* * *

That order saved lives.

Or, more accurately, lives, ammo, and ships. The Turian forces had fired another volley from extreme range, only for purple light to envelop and refract the shells off in multiple directions. Their second volley had seen the shells fly straight back at them, somehow slightly faster then before, and aimed to knock out engines rather than the main body of the craft. The Hold-Fire order had come through right after that, and the guns fell silent.

The asari had mobilized their naval forces, and were not firing at the moment, but only because a small cruiser carrying Matriarch Benazia was approaching the massive vessel. No-one had been able to dock with it yet, but that was mainly because there was nowhere to dock with on this thing.

The Salarians had mobilized their forces, and had their extremely-long-range fragmenting Mass Accelerators trained on the object, but as long as it didn't move, they were willing to let it stay there, and collect scans from a distance. Of course, the scans couldn't penetrate more than a dozen layers into the hull from this range, but the information it brought back was interesting enough to keep the Salarian Directorate busy. Also panicking slightly, but the difference between the two is very slight for Salarians.

* * *

Matriarch Benezia was both amused and annoyed. Amused because she had heard (through several of her contacts) that the Citadel Council needed to have their _SafeHouse_ cut open in order for them to leave the ship at all, and annoyed because the massive vessel in front of her wasn't responding to her hails on any frequency.

Her biotics caused a slight glow as she clenched them in frustration, then sighed.

Well, at least Liara was probably safe. All she needed to do know was wait- maybe the aliens would choose to initiate the contact on their own?

* * *

Nothing happened for hours, and the Council called for a general broadcast statement to be issued to the public, attempting to coax the economic lifeblood of the galaxy to move again- after all, having giant ships suddenly, without any warning, appear in a solar system would discourage trade vessels.

No sooner had the first ships returned and begun docking again than one of the massive alien ships opened an unseen flange, and then closed it again. It happened all within a minute, but everyone in the small system was watching this, and they noticed.

The Citadel Council, however, was soon preoccupied with the fact that an asari was being invited onto one of the ships.

* * *

Benezia froze when she saw the Can moving. Well, moving is the wrong word- a more accurate phrase would be rearranging itself. The segment that she was currently looking at (somewhat rectangular when seen close up), had risen slightly off of the surrounding plating, and was now splitting into smaller panels, each larger than her ship, and curving out of the way to reveal... A rising hanger, door open, mounted on some form of strut. It delicately slid into place, and the metal plates re-arranged themselves around the spire in a way that made them look like pieces of intricate clockwork rather than armored haul fragments larger than her own ship. Silver fluid filled the various gaps, briefly flowing in ways that described complex internal mechanisms before solidifying into all the holes that the new structure left on this ship.

The asari flipped open her comm connection to the fleet. "Asari Home-Guard, this is Diplomat Benezia, on the _Diplomatic Flight_. I have seen activity at the local cylinder that indicates potentially peaceful overtures."

There was a pause as this information was considered.

"Standby."

Benezia tapped her fingers, watching as lights within the hanger activated, in a pulsing pattern that drew her eye in towards a circular platform, more than large enough for her ship to land on. Still, she mused over the different reasons for why they might be utilizing lights, rather than some other system of communication. Why they might be using this sort of hanger rather than one built into the vessel- and what that liquid silver stuff was.

Tevos's voice cut into her musing. "Benezia?"

"Yes Councilor, I am here." Benezia quickly responded. She had been... Very good friends with the Asari Council member once upon a time.

"Good. Explain what you are looking at." The gruff voice with its multiple layering of sub-tones could only be the voice of Turian Councilor Sparactus. No-one who heard him would be able to forget his asshole of a voice.

Benezia gave a concise summary, and waited.

Tevos came through. "On behalf of the Citadel Council, we have you permission to enter the vessel, as they have not made any aggressive overtures so far."

"No aggressive overtures?!" That was Sparactus, and Benezia tried to shut out the turian's annoying voice as she slowly, using cold-gas reaction thrusters, directed her ship into the hangar. "They have parked their massive vessels in orbit around EVERY SINGLE WORLD WE HAVE A COLONY ON- AND MANY WE DON'T!"

Benezia drifted into the hanger, and deployed her landing gear. No sooner had her ship touched down when she felt the internal gravity fluctuate. Turning quickly, she brought up the gravity sensors.

Apparently, outside the ship the gravity had increased.

"Outside my vessel has gone from microgravity to 0.9 standard." Benezia reported. "No mass-effect distortions detected other than from my own ship."

"Interesting..." Mused the Salarian Councilor, Jekarth. "Any sign of visible acceleration?"

The asari called up a camera-pod that has hidden in the artistic curves of her vessel, and pointed it at the still-open door. The stars outside were static, and she activated the astronavigational programs. A few seconds of work, and she got her result.

"No acceleration other than current perceived orbit." Benezia confirmed. Another panel lit up, displaying several facts about the atmosphere outside the vessel, including a rising pressure. Wait- atmosphere? "Council, I am reading atmosphere outside my vessel- pressure is rising, but proportions seem to fit the current atmosphere within my vessel."

"They were prepared then." Tevos mused.

Benezia stood, and grabbed her helmet, sealing it on her head. The atmosphere may be breathable, but it would still be cold for a while.

* * *

Hailey-Rallus waited, with near-infinite patience, as the asari in her tiny ship slowly walked into the airlock. She was over six thousand years old, having been part of the first wave of Transferred Human's, and had spent a great deal of time doing things.

Then more than four thousand years sleeping. It was a bit absurd,but her experiment hadn't even reached its target yet. Said experiment was a self-contained solar sail/telescope that was harnessed around a white dwarf which, in and of itself, was at the midpoint between Andromeda and the Milky Way, and was leaving the galaxy at a respectable 2/3rds lightspeed, meant that she had another twelve or so thousand years- but that meant nothing to them.

Time changes when your entire people are immortal machine-gods.

One of her friends, Vanessa-Alpha, pinged her.

"Hey Hailey- any suggestion on how to get the ship into a hangar?"

Hailey-Rallus blinked, her perception of the universe altering to fit the message's interaction speed. "You tried the flashing lights?"

"Yeah... They just fired on it." Vanessa sounded distraught.

Hailey tapped her chin, her body wreathed in silver lacework as she floated out of the physical interface of her Delta-Carrier before she replied. "What species are you luring?"

"Some asari pirate queen." Vanessa almost sounded annoyed. "She's not taking any of the normal patterns."

Something clicked the back of her mind, but Hailey couldn't place it. "Where are you?"

"Galactic-Core, Gate 4."

Hailey snapped her fingers. "That's the Pirate Queen! What was her name... Aria To'look? Something like that. I doubt she would be interested in just a first-contact. Perhaps a bribe then?"

"Gold, platinum, etc. then." Vanessa deadpanned.

"Who doesn't like shiny things?" Hailey smirked. "Try adding gems too."

"Got it. Thanks Hailey!"

"No problem." Hailey-Rallus went back to waiting. She had near-infinite patience after all-

"Just open the fucking door lady!"

Okay, maybe not infinite patience.

* * *

Trailing in the asteroid field that surrounded the space-station known as Omega, one of the Can vessels sat there, dreadnought-sized bay sitting on a pole, doors open, and filled with several piles of what (according to the spectrographic systems) was platinum, gold, silver, and dozens of different types of diamonds.

Aria T'Loak, the Pirate Queen of Omega, glared at the massive ship- if she could even call it a ship. It had just been flashing lights, then the hanger closed up, and now it had flashing lights and treasure! Who the fuck did whoever was in the ship think they were?!

The captain of her ship, the _Endtimes_ , walked up to her. "How should we proceed?"

"Whoever is in that ship really wants us down there." She mused quietly. "So let's see what happens if we don't give them what they want." She looked at the attractive female Turian who ran her ship. "Send down a shuttle. Krogan and Commandos only. Instruct them to collect samples of the treasure, and bring them here- I want to see what the ship may do to them."

* * *

Planets are wondrous things. Some of them are naturally-occurring places of exceptional beauty, with huge life-forms that stride majestically across great planes, or seemingly-lifeless hell holes that are too close or far from their star for conventional life, yet beneath the surface some life may exist.

This planet may have once been one of those- but that was unlikely. It was about 1/3rd the size of Earth, 4,000 km in radius and made of effectively pure carbon. This, however, did not make it unique- there were many pure-carbon planets, and many of the ones nearest Sol and it's fortress were being actively converted into building material by the Terrans at this very moment. Some of them were the stripped cores of gas giants, others were effectively gigantic diamonds.

Most known planets like this were around Neutron stars, or dying small stars. Ones like this were hard to find, mostly because they were cold and small.

This was because there was no star for it to orbit around- and there hadn't been one for hundreds of thousands of years.

The small planet known to the Terrans as _The Shelter_ , and had a full ten thousand of the Delta-Carriers orbiting around it, their swarms of construction drones digging various material out, while others built thrusters, reactionless engines, reactors, power storage areas, and Commander safekeeping structures over the entire surface- and under it.

It was becoming an ark- of a sort. The Terrans wanted to make sure they lived through whatever conflict would arise, and make sure there was sufficient space to keep the species that were willing in cryo-stasis until they could reach a peaceful time, place... Or, if that didn't work, reach Andromida/one of the other galaxies in the local cluster.

In the worst case scenario, every Human Mind could use their warp gates to reach the asteroid, and, here, at the very edge of the galaxy, the massive ships would dock, sliding into huge holes all over the moon, linking their drives together to preform a single massive warp jump out of the galactic cluster. It would be a blind jump (somewhat, as the simulations for galactic movement was fairly advanced by now), but it would allow them to get far enough away for some breathing room if some significant opponent appeared.

Plans were being drawn up for a fleet of these- a fleet of worlds, garden worlds even, which orbited around each other and were brought along by a titanic warp gate in the gravitation center of the system- but they needed to solve some logistical problems first.

Such as how to keep the planets from freezing without bringing a star along- or failing that, how to bring a star along. Perhaps manufacture their own equivalent to provide the necessary light and heat, or capture a few red dwarfs and build them into the main drive construct.

But hey- they were Machine-god-like-beings. What were they supposed to do with their spare time? Play videogames? Fight among themselves? That didn't work out well before, and it probably won't work out well now.

Best to be the 'good' pantheon until there was a reason to be 'bad'- especially considering that the two-hundred lightyear radius around Earth were bereft of any large planets because of when they were briefly 'bad'.

* * *

Benezia was nervous- and for extremely good reason.

The moment she had set a foot upon the deck of the strange hangar, a pillar six meters wide at the base, and nearly ten meters tall slid out of the floor, with a single massive glowing red lens watching her.

She didn't move for a minute, waiting to see if it reacted before taking another step. When nothing happened, she walked closer to it, knowing that her ships' cameras were recording everything she did, and that her helmet-cam would be relayed along with the ship-can feed directly to the council, along with every word she said.

She knew this because she could hear them- at first. Thankfully, they were being silent now, the Council waiting to see what sort of interaction they could expect before making future plans.

The 'pupil' of the eye moved, looking up and down her, then at the ship, before a small panel opened and project an image of a very asari-like female figure. It had no face, or more fine details, more like a cloudy imprint of an asari than a detailed one, with a single notable exception: there was sort of cowl or fold behind the head of the projection.

It pointedly faced Benezia, and a voice filtered into her helmet though the exterior microphone, in perfectly-spoken High Asari.

"Hello! Can I speak to your boss?"

* * *

Aria T'Loak was, not to put too fine a point on it, a badass. She had been a badass for so long that asari commandos, who spent decades becoming the sort of super soldier that everyone wanted to hire, wished to be like her when they grew up. Or at least as badass.

As such, she had a certain amount of composure. Being able to rattle Aria was a privilege few survived to tell about, and fewer attempts due to the sheer suicidal nature of doing such a thing.

People in the bridge ducked when she raised her eyebrow in confusion and surprise.

Several pissed themselves when she grinned. "Fine. They want to talk- we'll talk." Her grin seemed to have just too many teeth to be healthy. "Spool up shuttle two, but take us in."

The Turian captain paused in mid-step. "Ma'am?"

"Land us in there."

* * *

Benezia floored- but this was not the first first-contact scenario she had been present in. She had been present when the Hanar encountered the Drell, and she had been part of the Citadel Diplomatic party then.

And just the same as then, she followed the protocol. When in doubt, contact your boss.

She quickly locked her helmet pickups, directing her request to the Council. "Councilors, the entity is requesting meeting you." She didn't need to phrase it as a question.

There was silence on the line for several minutes, until Tevos spoke. "Inform them that we are not available here, and that you are willing to be our initial representative."

Benezia cleared her throat, and opened the helmet pickups- only to be preempted.

"Very well. You know we can hear you, right?"

Benezia actually heard someone in the council chambers fall over. She groaned slightly, and turned on her helmet pickups again. "Is there something you wanted to say to them at the moment?"

"Yes. We apologize for the inconvenience, and the delay in directly contacting your culture. However, we are currently waiting on the final part of the party to arrive, and we apologize for the slight delay in this case." The female's tone sounded cheerful, and somehow pre-recorded. "And, since it is usually rude to listen in, we will only talk with the representatives that are physically present."

* * *

Aria stood on the deck, her defensive mass-effect shield barely visible around her body, body language oozing regal impunity. "What do you want?"

The hologram didn't move. "We are currently contacting the major known galactic powers at this time." It nodded. "Thank you for responding so promptly- we will begin the conference soon."

Aria raised her hand. "What conference?"

"We intend to meet with the major powers of this current cultural division between the organic races- such as the Terminus, Omega, the Citadel Council, and therefore doing so at the same time should allow us to get the best idea of what we should do about them."

The 'about them' bit made Aria's brow wrinkle slightly, but she scoffed. "Yeah, good luck getting the Council off their backsides."

"We have a representative who speaks for the Citadel Council, and she is currently waiting for you to agree to participate."

Aria blinked. "I need to agree?"

The glowing figure nodded. "Yes. We have great respect for the concept of 'free choice' and all that such concepts implies."

"And you also have a great understanding of 'negotiating from a position of power' I see." Aria observed as she gestured at the piles of money and new hangar her ship was in.

"Of course. Now, would you like to participate?"

"Hang on-" She had to ask. "- how did you know I was the ruler of Omega?"

"Your extra-net is not well-secured, and there is a great deal we learned from the Quarians." The figure leaned forward, cowl-like fingers of light flowing over glowing shoulders. "Now. Do you want to participate?"

Aria rolled her eyes. "Yes, I want to participate!"

The figure clapped its hands once. "Good!"

Another figure appeared next to it, looking just different enough to be distinguishable, before an Asari appeared next to Aria.

The asari, who was not expecting it, jumped back. "Aria? How did you get here?"

Aria smirked. That voice was unmistakable. "Benezia- so nice to see you again. How's my niece?"

Benezia plucked the camera off her helmet, attached it to her shoulder, and then took off her helmet, revealing a pale blue face and some slight rings around her eyes. "Doing fine. Now, about how you got here-"

The glowing figures between them snapped into sharp relief, appearing as attractive twin asari wearing cowls and skintight suits that covered everything from the neck down.

The right one raised a hand. "Now, to introductions. I am Hailey-Rallus, the vessel that you, Benezia, are currently standing on, and my cohort there is Vanessa-Alpha, the vessel that Aria is currently on."

"Nice to meet you!" Vanessa-Alpha chirped.

A thought percolated through the minds of both asari, and Aria was the first to voice it.

"Geth?" Her question was a word, but everyone understood it.

"No." Hailey-Rallus shook her head. "Not even close. The Geth, by description, are only sapient in great numbers. That, and the fact that we were organic at one point in time, just highlight our differences."

"They haven't approached our messenger vessel yet." Vanessa-Alpha added. "And we respect that, as they are not a dominant Galactic power as we define them."

Another asari, this one with very angular markings on its face (but otherwise a twin of the first two), poked it's head out of the massive eye-lens-thing. "But we still plan to approach them." Then it retreated.

"Thanks Jack-Jack!" Vanessa-Alpha shot back towards the pillar.

"It's Jack-Jax!" The voice was heard, but no head displayed.

Vanessa-Alpha turned back to the two asari diplomats, who were looking a bit nonplussed. "Sorry about that. Anyway, we would like to formally introduce our species, and the location of our territory."

Benezia perked up quickly. "Please, we are anxious to hear of our people."

Aria rolled her eyes. "Yes. Please. I have nothing better to do."

"Like carry off the massive amount of precious metals we had use as a lure to get you down here?" Hailey-Rallus supplied.

The Pirate Queen just smirked.

"Basic information first then." Vanessa-Alpha flicked a finger, and a blank white surface appeared behind them, floating in the air. "Now, we , the Terrans, and introduced ourselves to the Turian military as The Oncoming Tide- in order to prevent them from destroying a good chunk of the Quarian fleet... And subsequently from committing genocide as the Quarians would then have died of starvation." She added after a moment's thought.

"The current status of the Quarians so far is good, but we are limited in our sample size, as several hundred thousand of them are currently being held on Batarian worlds, and Illium. This is mainly a heads-up: we will be bringing them back to their families- by any means necessary." Hailey-Rallus stated that in such a way that both Asari (and the council) got chills.

"We also formally request that you evacuate the Citadel-"

"What?" Benezia couldn't stop the outburst. "Our center of government exists there!"

"Oh, so you like living in the shielding of a massive Relay?" Vanessa-Alpha shot back. "I mean, imagine what would happen if it activated! All those perfectly happy people one second, then dead the next- if they are lucky. And if the AI on the station doesn't have any altering motives."

Benezia opened and shut her mouth like a fish for a few moments, as Aria burst out laughing.

"By the Goddess's dripping (word untranslatable), you are not asking for much, are you?" She chuckled.

Hailey-Rallus turned her attention on Aria. "Oh, and we intend to either destroy or remove the Omega Relay."

Aria looked at the hologram that identified itself as 'Hailey-Rallus'. "Why?"

"It links to a nexus point between multiple relay networks, and since we discovered the AI on the Citadel, we have determined that it is not worth keeping in its current position."

The pirate queen crossed her arms and tapped her forearm with a few fingers as she thought. "Well then, am I free to take all of the treasure you laid out?"

Vanessa-Alpha grinned. "Sure. Just don't spend it all in one place."

"An AI on the-" Benezia started, before Vanessa-Alpha cut her off.

"This is a courtesy detail." Vanessa-Alpha grinned. "We did not have to tell you anything. We are patient, and are willing to wait for ten revolutions of Omega around its current star. At that point, we will move the relay, and destroy the Citadel. During that time, the Citadel Council may negotiate for a replacement construct to be built in place of their current accommodations."

"Can I request a replacement structure that would take the place of the Omega relay?" Aria add, seeing as Benezia was still somewhat out of it.

"Certainly. Our economy is more than capable of that sort of expenditure. We will send a... Smaller part to your station for negotiations, if you prefer."

Benezia seemed to flinch, then controlled her expression. "The Citadel Council would appreciate a diplomatic party to arrive within a few days."

Hailey-Rallus nodded. "That is reasonable. Jack-Jax, Millie-Gamma, Thule-Osiris, and Su Li-Theta are around the Citadel, and are constructing scaled-down vessels to fit in your docking ports. We look forward to the continuing diplomatic relations." She smirked. "Or whatever."

"Before you stop talking with us, will you tell us what sort of beings you are?" Benezia asked.

Hailey-Rallus and Vanessa-Alpha looked at each other, then back at Benezia.

"Where would be the fun in that?"

The holograms vanished with an alarming suddenness.

Aria clapped her hands together, and activated her earpiece with a minute flick of biotics. "Alright, everyone on the ship is to load this treasure! I want it gone within five minutes!"

* * *

Benezia sighed as she watched the panel slide back into the floor. Now she had to go get debriefed by the Council... But first, she had to call in and check on her daughter.

* * *

 **End Chapter 6**

* * *

I hope y'all enjoyed the chapter! I wish it had taken less time to write, but I wanted to make sure the characters gave off the right vibe.

Please review- it really helps. Feel free to Pm me if you have any questions or recommendations.

For those who are interested, I plan to update Pitch Black on Sunday, so I need to get to work on that when I have some more free time.


End file.
